Frequently Asked Questions on the 2019 Bond Referendum
1. The postcard that came in the mail. Did not have a dollar amount. Plus isn’t that what the PPEL is for?
As it relates to facts and figures, the Saydel Bond Referendum is asking voters to approve $20.625M for improvements to each campus in our district (see imagery on our website). The improvements will include increasing safety, modernizing learning environments for learners with a special emphasis on the fine arts, and to help keep our campuses up to date for district marketability. All of this will come to the taxpayer at no tax increase as we will maintain the same rate with bond approval. Our hope and intent is to invest in Saydel CSD's future for greater impact on our community.
In response to the Physical Plant and Equipment Levy (PPEL) inquiry, this funding stream is primarily utilized to maintain current building campuses, i.e. smaller projects, HVAC equipment repairs and replacement, ongoing maintenance (roofs, floors, lighting), etc..... The funding stream does not accrue fast enough to manage larger projects, i.e. large scale renovations (fine arts and classrooms), additions, and major replacements due to aging facilities. In essence, it helps us keep up with maintenance, but does not provide much as it relates to reinvestment into our organization; hence our kids and community. This is why it is crucial we invest in our community as we can chisel away at projects over the next 20 years, or we can invest ( without increased taxation) and have our campuses improved in the next 18 months; hence having greater impact on all graduates for the next 20 years.
2. Why are the projects listed as "Potential Projects"? Does this mean some of these projects could be eliminated? Who chooses which will be changed/eliminated?
Early on the projects were listed as potential to ensure offered stakeholders the opportunity to provide input; hence ability to change the scope of the projects based on this feedback. Since the early conception of the bond referendum, we have collaboratively tightened down the scope to be more specific for our voters. Please see the bond referendum section on our website for more explicit details on the plans in place. With that said, all of the potential projects have now been solidified as actual with some minor alterations to designs. Please note, the scope of our work is dictated by bids that come in (bid letting in February), and how that accrues from a fiscal standpoint.
3. Money has not always been spent the way the community has been told - how do I know it will be spent appropriately this time? More specifically, how do I know that the Fine Arts - Band/Choir/Auditorium will get their FAIR share and not be "forgotten" and "left out" as has happened year after year?
Please know we are legally bound, by the bond referendum ballot language, to ensure we carry out the plans for the tax dollars in which you approved. I would encourage you to see the plans on our website as this explicitly illustrates our intent for fine arts. With that said, we recognized that fine arts needed attention and it is our hope to update these areas to help us maintain our excellent programming for learners.
4. Money from the PERL Tax has not been used the way it was advertised - no trails between schools, no mowing for little league, minimal community ed classes with no communication within the community (outside of parents of registered students), etc. I am hesitant to vote on another tax without a guarantee that money will be used the way we are being told. Our music program has suffered at the hands of our school misspending money and doing athletic "pet projects" - where is my guarantee that the music department will not be put on the back burner again?
First and foremost, please note we are not asking for increased taxes as we will maintain our tax rate and have the great opportunity to invest in Saydel CSD, and our community's, future. Next, please know we are legally bound, by the bond referendum ballot language, to ensure we carry out the plans for the tax dollars in which you approved. I would encourage you to see the plans on our website as this explicitly illustrates our intent for fine arts. With that said, we recognized that fine arts needed attention and it is our hope to update these areas to help us maintain our excellent programming for learners. Lastly, our intent is to accomplish exactly what we have promoted we would do to better our school and community.
5. If a person no longer has kids in the system, give us one good reason to vote for this? With the current bond expiring, our taxes will eventually go down. The district receives over 2 million per year in local option sales tax and PPEL tax and that isn’t sufficient? If you look at the 4 driving factors, I find it hard to rationalize a 20 million dollar bond.
As a community, we each have a vested interest in developing our youth for future success as they will become our new workforce, neighbors, civic leaders, taxpayers and much, much more. If we reduce our capacity to develop our future, we reduce our potential to develop our community; hence it atrophies and declines. Whether we have children in the system or not, we are all affected by the level of success our youth has on the future as it translates to positive contributions to our great community.
As it relates to the Physical Plant and Equipment Levy (PPEL), this revenue stream generates enough resources to maintain the current facilities and minor projects in landscape of increasing costs for facilities and capital assets. This funding stream is designed to help districts offset increasing costs for aging facilities, but barely covers the increasing cost of doing business from an infrastructure perspective. Knowing this, when we are working to modernize our learning environments (major undertakings exceeding our resources in PPEL), add secured entrances for increased need for safety in an ever-changing world, working to maintain successful programming, i.e. fine arts spaces for band, music, performing arts etc..., and ensuring we are able to compete in the modern educational arena (whether we agree with the idea of it or not); it requires a substantial investment into our community and kids ( who are future). This investment secures a healthy community and benefits all members living in the Saydel School District.
As for taxes, we are fortunate to have great commercial valuation which has kept tax rates some of the lowest in the metro area. This gift has benefited all residents over the years and is a great attribute of our community. The fact of the matter is if we roll off bond debt, yes taxes may decrease, but so too does our capacity to invest into our most valuable assets of our community; our people (kids) and schools. We are asking that an already low tax rate be maintained so we can invest in our kids' futures; hence benefiting all of us. Lastly, we could chisel away at small, minor projects for the next 20 years, having less of an impact on the critical masses; or we have an opportunity to move on a bond referendum that provides the community significant campus upgrades positively benefiting the next 20 years of graduates. Either way, we pay for the upgrades; one just benefits more people sooner and provides our community greater capacity and potential from a health perspective.
6. And how much does this special vote cost, compared to doing it on regular election day - first Tuesday of November
Polk County does not bill school districts until after the election to ensure all costs are included. With that said and based on our last two special elections, we anticipate the costs to range from $2,000-$2,500. As for board elections, please note that the state has moved school board elections to the general election schedule. This will likely increase the costs as related to past years; hence costs will likely exceed the $2,500 due to the scale increase (voter numbers because it is a general election).
7. Can we save money by doing projects now, by passing the bond referendum, or is it better to wait? In other words, do the cumulative construction costs and interest rate increases over time result in more money being spent on the same projects in the future?
Yes. The increased costs of construction and inflation typically exceed interest rates for borrowing; hence it behooves us to work to achieve projects sooner than later from a fiscal standpoint. For this effort, Piper Jaffray has run projections at 4%, but with high bond ratings and playing the market for interest rates, we should be able to attain a lower rate equating to quite a savings and/or increased revenues. In essence, we cannot beat the increasing costs by waiting; hence it is always a losing battle which only results in additional costs over time (could be in the hundreds of thousands if not millions). Lastly, if we look at this sheerly from an investment standpoint, we are losing money by waiting as costs are only increasing as we wait and our dollars now will go further than they will at a later point in time.
8. I have heard that the alternative wing is being built to grow our at-risk programming. Is this true?
No. The Alternative Program wing is being built as a direct result of those current program classrooms being displaced due to commons area reconfigurations and other renovations at the HS.
9. I heard we have $2million a year to spend on this stuff. Shouldn’t this be enough to accomplish this work rather than asking for a bond for the projects?
No. The district actually receives ~$1.4million from the Physical Plant and Equipment Levy (PPEL), per year, which derives from the tax base. This funding stream is highly governed by the state and has rules on how it can be spent, i.e. for facility improvements, technology, and equipment (hence not staff salaries). With that said, we have three campuses that require maintenance and upkeep on an annual basis that consume much of these dollars. The annual costs for FY19 were $1.1million and cover things like roofing repairs and replacements, lighting upgrades, flooring, painting, HVAC maintenance, repair, and replacement, carpeting, technology equipment and infrastructure ($300,000+), and allows the district a small capacity to carry out minor projects as we can afford. Again, these yearly costs of doing business consume much of this funding stream to simply keep our facilities up to speed; hence do not allow for us to invest in our district in a major manner. Even if we work to save these funds over time, we end up deferring the annual work, “to save money,” which ends up hurting the district in the end as this only leads to neglect of our facilities. Furthermore, as costs continue to increase over time, we cannot save fast enough to manage large, multimillion-dollar projects to keep us viable as a thriving business which is vital for a healthy community. This is why we need the bond; to invest in our kids, schools, and community.
10. Is it true the school passed a bond and didn’t act on it; so we have to vote again?
No. The district does not hold the power to bond without voter approval; hence there was no bond that was not acted upon. The misunderstanding may have derived from our 2015 approval, by the board, of our Saydel Master Plan that the Haila architectural firm helped us develop in 2014. Please note this was not a bond. It was only a plan that the district wanted community input to inform future decision-making for our comprehensive facilities. Lastly, we have made great strides in this master plan and accomplished several of the projects. This year we asked Haila to update the plan before moving toward a bond referendum in September.
11. Are you saying Schools are not safe? Do you have Bids for these improvements? Who’s in charge of construction?
Part 1: No, we are not saying schools are not safe as we have a plethora of mechanisms in place. What we are saying is that in modern times, we must make every effort to increase our safety precautions in schools as we have stewardship over our most precious resource; our kids who are our future. Part 2: We do not have bids at this time. We are currently in the schematic design phase which will be followed by the development and design phase. In each of these phases, we run cost projections which are tightened as the scope narrows on the specifics. Once this is finished, blueprints are created that will be released for bid letting in January/February. Part 3: Ultimately, we are in charge of the construction, but we have several expert teams involved to help guide the district. We have Haila LLC architecture firm; Estes, a construction management company, who has the sole purpose of helping to represent us in this major work; and there will be several contractor teams actually carrying out the work for us (yet to be determined through the bidding process).
12. Is there an at-risk room being added. What % of open enrolled are at-risk students?
Part 1: The alternate program wing at the HS is being added as a direct result of those current program rooms being displaced; hence they are being removed for other renovations near the lunchroom and commons near the library. We are not adding additional rooms, only replacing those displaced spaces. Part 2: Our Open Enrollment is closed for the At-Risk Programming in our district.
13. Is our enrollment up or down as it relates to need for space across our district?
Five years ago, we experienced a dip in enrollment and have fluctuated between 1330 and 1350 students. Last year we experienced a +19 student increase and this year we are looking at as many as +65 new students, hence taking us well over 1400, for our total enrollment. With numbers trending up, we are beginning to experience tighter buildings and need for additional space for learning in which the bond will help alleviate.
14. If the bond does not pass, will our taxes automatically go down?
No, not necessarily. Schools pre-levy Debt Service taxes to save interest costs on current debt obligations. Even if the bond fails, the board has the ability to pre-levy taxes to maintain a stable tax rate; hence not increasing or decreasing from the current tax rate. Our intent at Saydel CSD is to maintain the current tax rate now and in the future.
Please note that the capital project revenues gained from taxation (PPEL and SAVE), only cover the basics as it relates to projects; and is not enough to carry out our master plan for renovations to all buildings. Even if we could pull off parts of the master plan, it would take 15-20 years to implement the plan with a much higher total cost due to increased construction costs over time. Furthermore, the benefit to learners would be 15-20 years away as opposed to providing the benefit to learners in the next 18 months; hence benefiting learners sooner rather than later. The bond referendum is a great investment into the health of our community at no tax increase.
15. Why the large increase in the alternative program? What is the increase in numbers over the last five years? Why the need for a new wing and are all these students from the Saydel community or are they transfer students?
Part 1: The alternative program wing is a direct result of current classrooms being displaced due to increased cafeteria and commons areas; hence no increase in programming; Part 2: In the last five years the need for alternative classroom settings have increased due to our increased at-risk factors in our district. The number only reflects the current needs we have within our district; hence serving our own kids within our boundaries; Part 3: We are closed to OE IN students for the At-Risk Programming.
16. If there are NO estimated bids for the work shown on these concept drawings, then how do you know that there will be enough funding to pay for everything as shown? Is there a monetary breakdown that we can be shown to see approximate expenses per area?
In the concept and schematic design phases, Haila Architecture and Estes Construction both work through a cost projection process to help us determine how much we propose to the community for a bond referendum. As we navigate toward the Design & Development and Blueprinting Phases we will again tighten down on the costing. Ultimately, when we go to bid letting, in Jan./Feb., we will know a more exact cost for the overall project. If the bids come back much higher than we project, we work toward a process to adjust project scope to align to available funds. Please know this is a common practice for school bonds and projects such as ours.
17. Why are you adding an additional cost of a construction management firm? The architecture firm should handle this. Estes isn’t a local firm which adds travel, hotels and other fees to the cost of the project. Construction cost is up with a shortage of trained people what is the project priority when your estimated cost is exceeded?
When we are proposing a project of this magnitude, it is prudent to invite a Construction Management (CM) firm to aid us with the work. When we invite a CM onboard (who works directly for us), we remove the General Manager (who works for their company an interests of their sub-contractors), we involve them on the front side of design and development for increased efficacy of project costing and problem-solving, they help save funds resulting from one layer of subcontractors markups, we save time and money on change orders, we have trained experts at the table to help maintain project scope (hence keeping the project within budget), and we have experts at the table to problem solve saving us future expenses for rework after the project has been completed.
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