By Derek Spellman
dspellman@joplinglobe.com
SENECA, Mo. — A facilities committee has recommended the Seneca School District pursue a $10 million bond issue in November for construction of a new elementary school and additions to the existing high school.
Superintendent Rick Cook said the school board received the committee’s recommendation last week and will make an official decision at its June 19 meeting. The facilities committee, comprising some school officials and members of the community, has been meeting since January to advise the school board.
The plan recommended by the committee calls for construction of a new elementary school near the existing elementary school building, at 1815 Saint Eugene St., and for additions to the existing high school to house a new library and media center, a new cafeteria/commons area and a new gymnasium/auditorium.
Cook said the new elementary school building could accommodate more than 300 students and would house grades four, five and six if the voters approve the plan. The sixth grade would be moved from the middle school to the new building.
Currently, the district has one elementary school but a total elementary student population of 689 students running from grades kindergarten through fifth, according to the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. The district has had to use trailers at both the elementary and middle schools and for its Early Childhood Program.
“Our whole fifth-grade program is in trailers,” Cook said.
Overcrowding also has been an issue when it comes to use of the current high-school gym and cafeteria to serve students, he said.
The proposal that will come before the school board for a vote later this month calls for an 85-cent levy hike that would translate into an annual tax increase of more than $129 on an $80,000 house.
The district’s current levy stands at $2.75 per $100 of assessed valuation. The owner of an $80,000 house currently pays about $418 a year in taxes at that rate, which Cook said is the state-required minimum. The district now has no debt-service levy at all.
If the board proceeds with a November bond election, the measure would require a four-sevenths majority. It would mark the third time in two years that the school district has sought a bond issue to ease overcrowding.
In November 2006 and again in April 2007, school officials sought voter approval of a proposal to use a financing package of $6 million in general-obligation bonds and $3 million in interest-free federal money for construction of a new high school at Route U and Bethel Road.
That plan carried a 59-cent levy increase to pay off the bonds. That would have translated into an annual tax increase of $112.10 on a $100,000 home in the Seneca School District.
That measure obtained more than 55 percent of the vote in November 2006 but failed to secure the fourth-sevenths, or 57.1 percent, majority necessary for passage. When the measure reappeared on the April 2007 ballot, it mustered nearly 54 percent of the total vote.
Autopsies of those elections showed that the proposed site of the new high school — specifically its location on the fringes of Seneca — was a key issue, Cook said. The most recent proposal keeps the new school and additions either on or close to the existing campuses.
“One of the big issues from the beginning has been the location of the new schools,” he said.
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