By Clara Osten,
clara@wayneherald.com
Approximately 100 people filled the Wayne High School Lecture Hall during the first of three meetings last week to listen to information on the upcoming bond issue.
Voters in the Wayne School district will be receiving ballots in the mail later this month and have the opportunity to decide the fate of a $27,945,000 bond to allow for construction and renovation of the district's facilities. Ballots need be returned to the Wayne County Clerk's Office by Tuesday, March 14.
Those in attendance at the meeting were welcomed by Board President Jodi Pulfer. She told those in attendance that the facilities committee, made up of a number of people from throughout the district, came up with the recommendation for the construction of a new Pre-K through second grade building and additonal classrooms at the current junior-senior high school.
Wayne Community Schools Superintendent Dr. Mark Lenihan shared information on how the district got to this point.
"The purpose of this gathering is to inform the voters and provide them with accurate information," Dr. Lenihan said.
He said the district began working on a Master Plan during the 2019-2020 school year in an effort to handle the growing enrollment in the district. The district has seen a 20% increase since 2015 and "this increase is projected to continue as there is an increase in housing in Wayne. The town is growing."
Dr. Lenihan said that 66 new students have enrolled in the district since the start of the 2022-2023 school year.
He shared two of the needs of the district that the passage of the bond would address.
These are the fact that the preschool is currently located at a site away from the campus and is being leased by the district at a cost of $60,000 per year.
Bob Soukup, an architect with Carlson, West Povondra, talked to the group about the process the district has gone through and what the community facilities committee has done.
"The group focused on the needs of the district and what is reasonable to meet the needs of the school," Soukup said.
He walked the audience through what is being planned at the high school and the advantage of constructing a Pre-K through second grade building just west of the Wayne Community Activity Center.
Seven new classrooms would be constructed on two levels on the east side of the junior-senior high school. One of these would be a larger science class room/lab that would allow for all the science classrooms to be in one location.
Renovation of the current Lecture Hall would allow for a larger stage and improved seating. The vocal music department would move to the west side of the school, closer to the Lecture Hall and band room.
The current wrestling room would become a lab for the ag department and a wrestling room would be constructed next to the current weight room on the south side of the junior-senior high school.
The new building for Pre-K through second grade would include four classrooms for kindergarten through second grade and two for preschool students. A storm shelter for the building is also part of the plan.
Constructing the building at the proposed site would allow for both better traffic flow for dropping off and picking up students and future expansion.
"Nothing is completely finalized at this point. There is room for improvement as we move through the process," Soukup said.
With the building of the Pre-K through second grade facility, the current elementary school would become a third through sixth grade building, allowing for the district to grow and offer four sections per grade should that be necessasry.
Jay Spearman with Piper Sandler spoke to the group on the financial impact of the project.
He told the audience that for the purpose of bond payments, ag land is taxable at 50% of its value. He listed the tax liability on various property valuations.
Current projects call for a 12.9 cent levy per $100 of valuation for the duration of bond.
Spearman said the district would likely issue bonds in at least two portions to allow for the opportunity to save money should interest rates go down.
Questions from the audience included whether or not security measures are being factored in to the cost, what happens when the assessed value of land goes up (the levy would be adjusted lower to allow for the collection of the same tax dollars) and what would happen if the bond does not pass.
In regard to this scenario, Dr. Lenihan said the district cannot turn away students who live in the district. However, adjustments could be made to the number of option enrollment students the district accepts.
"We would have to try to make do with what we have," Dr. Lenihan said.
A third meeting for district patrons to learn more about the bond vote has been scheduled to take place Monday, Feb. 20 at 6 p.m. in the Carroll Auditorium in Carroll.
