Voters within the Cascade School District will decide next month if they will take on another long-term bond to pay for repairs across six schools.

The district is asking voters in Aumsville, Turner and the surrounding area to approve a $30 million bond measure. If it were to pass, the district would receive an additional $10.2 million grant from the state.

Upon passage, residents would be taxed at a rate of $1.09 per $1,000 of assessed value for 20 years. The owner of a property with an assessed value of $250,000 would pay about $272.50 per year. A $19.5 million bond approved by voters in 2005 will be paid off this year.

All main Cascade school buildings were constructed over 50 years old, including two that were built over a century ago. The district’s long-term facilities planning committee identified more than $100 million in needed improvements, spokesperson Gregg Koskela said.

“We just went, ‘No, that’s not going to be possible,’” he said. “‘What can we do with a replacement bond.’ We found out we can do a lot of important things.”

The district operates six schools: Cascade High School, Cascade Junior High, alternative school Cascade Opportunity Center in Aumsville, and Turner, Aumsville and Cloverdale elementary schools.

Among the projects that would be done with money from the bond:

• replacing roofs at district buildings that haven’t received replacements,
• upgrading and adding capacity to the septic system at the main campus as well as renovating bathrooms,
• constructing a new kitchen and cafeteria totaling 4,800 square feet at Cloverdale Elementary and remodeling the kitchen at Turner Elementary,
• upgrading heating and air conditioning systems at many of the district’s buildings,
• adding elevator lifts at the Opportunity Center and Turner Elementary,
• resurfacing the track at Cascade Junior High and fixing problems under the track,
• removing the bleachers in the upper section of the old high school gym and building a wall to create a separate space for classes, and
• fixing structural problems in the roof at Aumsville Elementary.

The bond approved in 2005 originally resulted in property owners being charged $1.78 per $1,000 of assessed value. That bond paid for a new gym at Cascade High School, new classrooms and other improvements.

Between refinancing the bond debt and expanding development of property within the district, including a new neighborhood around Turner Lake, the district is currently charging residents $1.09 per $1,000.

In 2021, the district pitched to voters a 25-year, $56.3 million bond. It would have increased property taxes to $2.13 per $1,000. Voters rejected that proposal. That money would have addressed a lot of the same work being proposed now but also would have included construction of new classrooms to accommodate enrollment growth.

Currently, attendance in the district is about 2,750, up from about 2,200 a decade ago.

The district used COVID-19 relief funds and insurance money to build new classrooms at Turner Elementary and Cloverdale Elementary as well as science classrooms for the high school, Koskela said.

“We’re not banking on a lot of growth,” he said. “We’re trying to figure out how to manage what we have and anticipating staying similar. This bond is to look at doing our main things to make things last.”

The district has received four seismic upgrade grants from the state since 2016 totaling $7 million. That money paid for work at Turner and Cloverdale elementary schools and the junior and high school buildings.

If this bond measure were to fail, property owners’ taxes would drop.

“We’re going to face more and more issues like we’re facing right now in Aumsville where on a daily basis, you’re dealing with flooding, you’re dealing with that kind of dampness and that kind of stuff,” Koskela said. “For the taxpayer, the previous bond will be paid off. If we keep them the same, we’re able to keep our buildings going for a while.”

Editor’s note: This article first appeared in The Statesman Journal and then was distributed on the USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect.

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