By Chad Koenen

Publisher

New York Mills School District voters will be heading to the poll in November for more than just the conventional elected governmental positions. Voters will be asked to approve the first building levy in 26 years as part of an expansive building proposal at NY Mills School that would address everything from a space crunch for staff and students to addressing deferred maintenance.

The levy is broken out into three questions, which if the entire project is approved, will be over $30.5 million. 

“We haven’t done a voter approved referendum in 26 years, since the auditorium was built in 2000, so there are some deferred maintenance issues,” said NY Mills School Superintendent Adam Johnson. 

In addition to the need for redesigning some of the classrooms for today’s students, the proposal would address things like drainage concerns that continue to cause issues in and around the school area, which includes water coming in the double doors in the back nearly every spring. NY Mills School’s student enrollment also continues to grow. Johnson said the school district had an enrollment of 767 students in 2015 and its current enrollment is 825 students. However, he said enrollment at the school district has been as high as the 870s in recent years, which is starting to put stress on the school district building as a hole.

“We are having bigger classes than we have ever had before and that is putting some stress on the building. We have every nook and cranny being used right now,” he said. “We just need to fix some of this stuff before it keeps deteriorating and it gets more expensive to fix.”

As part of the first question, which has a cost of $22,500,000, the school district will touch a number of classrooms and drainage issues. Among the projects will be construction and equipping of a band and choir suite; construction and renovation to physical education space, fitness room and wrestling rooms; renovation and construction of career and technical education (CTE) spaces; construction and equipping of new classrooms; repurposing and remodeling of existing classrooms and spaces for educational needs; renovations and updates to the administrative office areas, including construction of secure entrances; renovation and equipping of the existing kitchen, concession stand, and restrooms; and addressing deferred capital maintenance including, but not limited to, flooring, main gym sound system, building envelope, water drainage and parking lot improvements.

Since the first part of the levy is necessary maintenance and projects for the future of the school, Johnson said the school district will need to go back to the drawing board to address the items in the first question if it doesn’t pass in November.

“We have to come up with a new number one if (question one) doesn’t pass,” said Johnson. 

While the district has maintained that the project behind Question 1 is necessary at this stage to continue to grow and operate efficiently and effectively, Question 2 and Question 3 are additional updates which have been specifically mentioned and sought out by community members. However, the district does not feel the projects in the second and third questions are absolutely essential to implement at this time.

Question 2 proposes updating the high school media center, changing the space into a commons area for students. This project along with the other two, is being pursued to have the lowest cost to taxpayers. Currently Question 2 would cost an additional $2.6 million.

Johnson said the second part of the levy can be addressed in the future if it weren’t approved in November, but addressing it at the same time as the other part of the project could help the district avoid a future construction project on a newly renovated school. 

Question 3 is another suggestion from the community of a new track which, because of several challenges with the current football field, would likely need to be shuffled around and implemented with a new football complex on the school’s campus. Space becomes a problem at the current football field when implementing a new track, so the thought would be to implement this project next to the school building. This project is slated to cost $5.5 million.

Johnson said this was the only way to get a competitive track for the track team, which could also be used by phy ed classes and for elementary track and field day. 

One thing to note about this potential tax referendum is that it will be the first voter-approved referendum since 2000 when the auditorium was built. There have been some smaller projects such as the parking lot that were paid for by tax funding, but nothing on this large a scale or which needed a vote from the public for 26 years.

“Like I keep telling everyone, we haven’t done one in 26 years and we don’t plan on doing another one for another 26 years as this takes care of a lot of our issues,” he said.

Voters will have a choice between what, if any, of the projects it would like to see implemented in November. If the first question fails the second and third questions cannot be implemented, even if voters approve them. However, voters could approve the first and second questions, or the first and third questions, and those would be the only ones implemented. All three questions could also come to fruition if approved by a majority of school district voters. 

According to Johnson, the cost for the referendum depends on the value of each property within the school district. The average value of a home within the NY Mills School District is $250,000 and if the first question were to pass the additional cost in taxes per year would be $465 for 20 years. If the second question passes it would cost an additional $50 per year and if the third question were to pass that portion of the referendum would cost an additional $109 per year. If all three questions were to be approved by a majority of voters the total cost for a home with a value of $250,000 would be an additional $624 per year, or $52 per month. 

Anyone with questions about the referendum are encouraged to reach out to Johnson at the school. Over the past month he has made the rounds to various non-profit organizations, community groups and townships/city councils to discuss the need for the referendum and building issues at the school. 

“If people have questions just reach out any time. I am happy to talk about it, the school board is happy to talk about it…if people have questions just reach out,” he said.