By CRISTINA JANNEY
Hays Post

About 25 local people Tuesday night took a tour of Lincoln Elementary School and had the opportunity to ask questions about a proposed $78.5 million Hays USD 489 bond issue.

Representatives of DLR, the district’s architectural firm; members of the district’s Community Vision Team; teachers; board members; Superintendent John Thissen; principals; and the construction manager at risk, Nabholz Construction, were all on hand to answer questions and provide information.

The bond would increase the mill levy by 11.43 mills, which would be $16.43 per month on a $150,000 home. The district does not receive any state aid for bond projects, because it is considered a “rich” district. This means state taxes paid here end up going to other districts in the state like Dodge City, Garden City, Hutchinson, Salina and Liberal to pay off their bond debts.

See a list of all the projects that are part of the bond and FAQ sheet by clicking here.

A member of the cafeteria staff talked to attendees about the problems Lincoln has with its basement cafeteria and kitchen. It is not large enough for all the preparation to be done there, so a great deal has to been done off site, and much of the food has to be stored off site.

The sewer lines run in the back of the walls of the cafeteria, and the school dealt with a line break that lead to an odorous yellow liquid seeping through the wall while the children were eating. Crews had to come in and work at night to fix the plumbing. A regular odor comes from one of the utility closets in the basement cafeteria.

Since the cafeteria is in the basement, children or staff who have disabilities or injuries can’t make it down the stairs. They can’t have lunch with their peers and have to be served lunch in the library. The basement also serves as the school’s tornado shelter.

The building was built before the national school lunch program was created, and the basement was likely never intended to be used for a cafeteria.

Children at Wilson Elementary School only have about 10 to 15 minutes to eat their lunch. One younger students was in tears because she couldn’t finish her lunch in that amount of time. The times are short because of a lack of space in the cafeteria.

Two art teachers, music and orchestra all share one room on the second floor of Lincoln. Rita Legleiter, art teacher, said the arrangement is difficult because she has to reconfigure her classroom every morning. Because she has to move between schools, she also loses time and she can’t stay with students as they progress into the upper grades of elementary school.

Certain special education services are also sharing rooms in the building, which are split by dividers.

The district is proposing closing Lincoln, repurposing O’Loughlin Elementary and building a new elementary school.

Three elementary schools would not only mean staff would have less travel between schools, it would mean millions in savings.

Amber Beverlin, senior architect for DLR, said the district should save $400,000 to $500,000 each year of the 30-year bond because of the new buildings and consolidation to three elementary schools instead of four.

That will be an estimated $10 million over the term of the bond.

Some members of the community have had questions about the length of the bond. Troy Wade, also of DLR, said the district stands to save money by attending to the building needs now. The cost of construction goes up 4 to 5 percent each year. Interest rates are also low now, and those could increase if the district came back to do another bond in 10 or 15 years.

Delaying construction could add 40 percent to the cost of the work, Wade said.

One attendee said she lived near one of schools that was scheduled to close and wanted to know what would happen to the empty buildings.

Lincoln, Washington, Munjor, Westside and Rockwell would no longer have students in them if the bond passed.

Early Childhood Connection students at Munjor and Washington, students at Westside and the Learning Center students would all go to O’Loughlin. The Westside and Rockwell buildings will still be used by administration support staff. Other arrangements may eventually be made for those offices.

Munjor would go back to the Catholic Church. The district would try to repurpose or sell the Lincoln and Washington buildings. If this could not be done, there is money in the bond to demolish the buildings.

Valerie Wente of the Community Vision Team, said an old school in her hometown of Topeka had been taken over by the Topeka Community Theatre. Chris Dinkel also of the Vision Team said the space could even become green space or a park.

Another attendee asked where the new elementary school would be built. Thissen said that has not been determined. The district has land at the high school that the school could be built on. However, Thissen said he was not sure if that is where the community wants to place the school. There is money in the bond to purchase land for the new school.

HHS principal Marty Straub said he was excited at the prospect of having an elementary school near the high school as it would allow high school students to act as mentors with the younger students and the younger children to be involved in the early childhood development labs at the high school.

The district can’t release a possible location for the new school yet because that would affect negotiations for a possible land purchase. Thissen said that would be one of the first things addressed if the bond passes.

The school to replace Wilson Elementary School will be placed on the same site as the current Wilson. Once the new Wilson is completed, the old building will be torn down.

One attendee said she would not support the bond if all the schools were on the east side of town.

The group discussed the decision to build a new elementary school to replace Wilson instead of renovating Wilson. Wilson is insured for $5.9 million, Wade said. A renovation would cost $16.5 million. A new school is going to cost $21 million. When a renovation is going to cost more than 60 percent of the cost of a new building, architects recommend investing in a new building.

Each of three elementary schools would be four-section schools, which means that four classes of each grade could be located in those schools. The four-section schools would allow for growth, but also allow in the short term for class sizes to be reduced. The average class sizes at the schools right now is about 23, and the district wishes to decrease that to 18 to 22 students.

If the bond is approved, design work will take 10 months to a year. The new elementary schools would be the first to be finished. The renovations could take longer, and O’Loughlin would likely be the last project as the students would need to be able to move into the new schools before work on that building could begin.

Above all the district is urging people to register to vote and vote. The district is providing voter registration forms in the offices of all its buildings. In post analysis of a bond that failed in 2016, only about 30 percent of teachers and parents voted in the election.

Thissen said he urged people to vote no matter how they chose to vote. The deadline to register to vote is Oct. 17. Early voting is set to start on Oct. 23 and Election Day is Nov. 7.