Medford School District seeks $22.6 million for school projects

Voters in the Medford School district are being asked to vote to approve a $22,665,000 maintenance and infrastructure improvement referendum in November.

The project is intended to address current and future district needs with a large focus on the high school, which is the district’s oldest school building.

The largest items in the proposed referendum are expansion of the tech ed space at $6.4 million including connecting the tech ed building to the high school, the addition and upgrades of classroom space for core science and language arts programs at $6.2 million including adding an accessible entrance from the lower level of the high school, and $7.9 million on infrastructure projects including furnaces, roofs and addressing bathroom and plumbing issues at the high school and $468,000 on doing bathrooms outside the middle school gym.

During a recent tour of the school buildings with district administrator Laura Lundy, she noted that the tech ed space is at a premium in the district. Lundy noted the district works closely with business and industries to get feedback on the skills students who are going into the workforce or the trades need in order to succeed.

Lundy explained that space has been an issue in the shop classes especially as the district has worked to upgrade older equipment with things like CNC routers in the woods and metals areas. These new pieces of equipment are larger to match those in use in settings applications and this takes up even more of the limited space in the tech ed building. In recent years, the growth of tech ed programs has caused the agriculture classes to move entirely into the school barn, eliminating space in the barn that had been used for tractor maintenance and restoration programs.

The referendum calls for addressing an ongoing safety and security concern by connecting the tech ed building to the back of the school with additional tech ed classroom spaces. Throughout the day, students are going to and from the two buildings. This has been identified numerous times as a security risk.

Medford Area Senior High School has nationally recognized science teachers. However, the classrooms have remained largely unchanged in the decades since the school was built. Science curriculum has changed over the years and so have the tools used for teaching science and engineering programs. The current classroom spaces are crowded with items and fixed worktables and have accessibility issues.

In addition, the lower level of the high school has a general lack of accessibility. There is an elevator in the building which is barely large enough for two people and which is unusable in the case of fire or other need to evacuate the building. Those in wheelchairs or with other mobility issues are told to wait for rescue in the stairwells with the design of the building requiring going up steps to get out of the lower level.

To address the science classroom needs and accessibility, the referendum calls for spending $6.2 million to construct a two story addition off the southeast corner of the building which will include an atgrade exit from the lower level while creating new science classrooms and English/language arts classroom spaces.

Lundy explained that the addition will create a net increase of two new classrooms in the high school. She said this will allow additional course offerings to be made in the future.

The largest item in the referendum is a variety of maintenance and infrastructure replacements and improvements which are on the district’s 10-year capital plan. If approved, the referendum would allow $7.9 million to be spent on these projects which include things like replacing the multipurpose room floor in Stetsonville Elementary School which is original to the building and needs to be upgraded. This space is used as SES’s cafeteria and gym.

Other maintenance projects include the replacement of boilers in each of the buildings as well as a number of other projects.

Lundy noted that the school board trimmed the initial referendum proposal down by $1 million in this area to reduce the overall referendum amount. The district’s four school buildings and campuses represented several hundred million of public investment and keeping them maintained and in good repair has always been a high priority for the district.

Lundy noted that one particular project in this area would be to upgrade all the bathrooms in the high school to meet modern standards for accessibility and usability both by those there during the school day, as well as for community members using the bathroom facilities.

One area that is notably different than prior referendum attempts is that this referendum does not include any projects for athletics or sports. The closest it comes is a plan to spend $468,000 to renovate the bathrooms outside of the large gym at the Medford Area Middle School. These bathrooms are original to that portion of the building that was built in the 1950s.

Taxpayer impact While the referendum includes major enhancements and maintenance upgrades throughout the district it comes with a price tag.

According to Lundy, the impact to taxpayers is limited by a few factors. The first, and largest, is that the district qualified for 71% state aid reimbursement. What this means is that after the first year, the district will receive additional state aid equal to 71% of the project cost.

The state aid amounts come through state tax revenues paid by all people in the state. If the state aid is not spent in Medford, it will got to another district to pay for their projects.

The additional state aid effectively reduces the local taxpayer cost of the referendum from $22,665,000 million to about $6.6 million that will be repaid through the local tax levy over the next 20 years.

The school district has worked with Baird as its financial consultants for the project. Baird has based its interest cost projections for the referendum on a rate of $5.25%. This is a full percentage higher than similar bond sales that have taken place this summer even before the Federal Reserve lowered interest rates in September. Financial experts are anticipating an additional interest rate decrease later this year after the election. A lower-than-projected interest rate reduces the amount that will have to be paid over the life of the loan and would impact the bottom line of local taxpayers. That said, Baird is being conservative in presenting a worst-case scenario for interest.

Based on those things, the projected maximum first cost to taxpayers will be $0.47 per $1,000 of equalized value on their tax bill. For a home valued at $200,000, the impact would be about $94 per year in additional school taxes, which works out to be about $7.83 per month.

Lundy urges voters to contact her or other school officials with any questions about the referendum and urges people to check out the referendum link on the district’s website at www.medford.k12. wi.us/.

Medford Area Senior High School’s science classrooms would get an upgrade as part of a proposed referendum. The classrooms such as this one lack storage and accessibility and need to be modernized. BRIAN WILSON/THE STAR NEWS

The bathrooms outside the large gym at Medford Area Middle School date from the 1950s. The referendum includes upgrading bathrooms throughout the high school to address issues with them. BRIAN WILSON/THE STAR NEWS

District administrator Laura Lundy points out the floor in the Stetsonville Elementary School cafeteria/ gym area that is in need of being replaced. BRIAN WILSON/THE STAR NEWS