The USD 489 Facility Needs Committee met Friday morning.

Committee co-chair Bryce Young told Hays Post that the committee sent out a needs assessment  some time ago and asked for top ten wants and top ten needs.  At that point, the architect visited each facility and attempted to incorporate their wants/needs into the assessment.

At Friday’s meeting the committee was shown for the first time how that needs assessment would be incorporated at each facility.  The next step is to have the architect meet with facilities and come back to the committee with a price tag for the incorporation of the changes.  The committee members will then look at the price for each item and decide if any of the changes would be acceptable in the eyes of the community.  Community willingness to consider each change is gauged using research by the Docking Institute.

The final recommendation will be submitted to the board, but only if it’s found to be cost effective and there’s an indication that the public would be in favor of the change.  Young illustrated the next steps of the process using the committee’s past recommendation to abandon the Rockwell administration building.  While it may be in the best interest of the district from an assessment standpoint due to the state of the facility, lack of parking, and the space needs, if voters wouldn’t support the change, the committee wouldn’t allow that item to make it to the final proposal.

Young stressed that while this is simply an illustration, it’s a good example of why the committee is in place.

“Everybody wants to know ‘how does this impact me and my budget personally?  We’re very cognizant of all that and we’re trying to be realistic but also we’re trying to plan to have the infrastructure and facilities in place to have the strongest district that we can for the foreseeable future.  I want to make sure that people don’t lose sight of the fact that we’re just trying to make sure the 489 district has as good of facilities as they do outcomes and test scores.”