Tahoma School District’s proposed construction bond measure is coming into focus but a Board of Directors vote set for Tuesday evening was pushed back due to early August so a consultant could gather more information.
“We heard from our architects late (Monday) that they need a little more time to be precise about the projected costs,” Patterson said. “We have the construction costs identified but the land preparation is taking longer to estimate than they anticipated. We have to file (with King County Elections) by Aug. 6, so getting the amount into a formal resolution passed by the board has to happen before that.”
As of Tuesday morning, however, a number of significant details were settled centered on grade realignment based on the premise that a new high school would be built if the bond measure passes in November. Though a final bond amount was not determined, Patterson wrote, the amount the board could consider is around $175 million to cover the costs for the projects it wants to tackle. It is anticipated the district could receive an additional $20 million in state matching funds, Patterson wrote, and could potentially cost taxpayers an additional $1.37 per $1,000 of assessed property value than what property owners pay now on the remainder of the 1997 construction bond which will be paid off at the end of 2016. As an example, Patterson wrote, if the bond is passed at the $175 million level it would cost an additional $411 a year for a homeowner whose house has an assessed value of $300,000.
“There will be money for warm-safe-dry work at schools as needed — roofs, HVAC, security,” Patterson wrote. “There is also funding for changes that are needed for grade-level conversions, such as creating kindergarten rooms, converting middle school lab spaces to regular classrooms, or installing playground equipment. The annual costs to taxpayers are conservative estimates, meaning we are not calculating much assessed valuation growth. We would structure the new bond sales and repayments so that the annual cost remains steady and doesn’t spike up or down.”
At this point the main menu — if voters approve it in the fall — for the bond measure includes: a new Tahoma High for students in ninth through 12th grade, the current high school and Tahoma Junior High converted to middle schools for sixth through eighth grade, while Tahoma Middle would become an elementary school, Cedar River would become a companion elementary to Shadow Lake for third, fourth and fifth graders with Shadow Lake housing kindergarten, first and second graders.
Portables would be removed from the current high school, Shadow Lake, Rock Creek and Glacier Park elementary schools, with the latter two serving students in kindergarten through fifth grade.
