By CRISTINA JANNEY
Hays Post
The Hays USD 489 school board is setting its sights on a bond election in 2020.
Board members directed staff during a facilities planning meeting Monday night to develop time lines for either a spring or September 2020 school bond election.
The Hays district has had two failed bond elections in three years — one in 2016 and another in 2017. The district has only had one $10 million bond in the last 40 years.
No decisions have been made as to what the school bond issue will contain, but the board continues to come back to three issues on its priority list — finish upgrades to the Hays High School HVAC system, renovate and expand Roosevelt Elementary School and expand the cafeteria at Hays Middle School.
Rusty Lindsay, USD 489 buildings and grounds director, said he receives the most complaints about the district’s HVAC systems, and those issues are spread across all buildings. He also said HVAC is an area that has the highest likelihood of a catastrophic failure.
Addressing the HVAC systems in a bond would leave more money in the yearly capital improvement budget to complete projects at other buildings, Lindsay said.
Roosevelt Elementary School is the newest of the four elementary schools. Adding two sections of each grade to Roosevelt would allow the district to vacate Lincoln Elementary School, which is more than 90 years old and has substantial infrastructure problems.
The district may also be able to reap savings from the efficiency of having three versus four elementary buildings.
The board members discussed the need to do smaller bonds over shorter time frames. They discussed trying for a 10 to 15-year bond with a tax ask of $10 to $15 per month on a $150,000 home.
Board member Lance Bickle said he still hoped the district could establish a long-range plan for what it hopes to accomplish in incremental bonds over multiple 10-year bond cycles.
However, Superintendent John Thissen said planning too far in advance could doom the bond the board is working on now. Further needs can be very different in 10 years than they are now.
“This is the first base step,” he said. “No matter what happens in the future, this needs to be done.”
He added if the district did these three base projects, it would have flexibility to move in a variety of directions in the future.
The board agreed to have time set each month on their agenda to discuss the bond issue. In July, the board will look at a timeline for the bond. Lindsay will report back to the board in August.