Colby K-12 offers info on referendum

By Nathaniel Underwood

The Colby school district hosted their final referendum presentation and tour night for the community last Monday, at which members of the public were welcomed to receive information on the upcoming referendum that will be on the Nov. 5 ballot and be shown around the facilities to get a better understanding of where the improvements and maintenance projects would take place.

At the meeting before the tour, superintendent Patrick Galligan explained the two questions that will appear on the ballots of school district members and the reasoning behind splitting the referendum across the two measures.

With the school about to finish payments on a previous referendum for roughly $16 million and several large maintenance projects on the horizon, the Colby school board believed that it would be a good time to go to referendum once again, as the school district could obtain the money for these projects without raising taxes a significant amount.

The first question, which would ask for bonds of $17.77 million, was framed to focus on maintenance and modernization in the presentation by Galligan. Covered in this

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question would be numerous infrastructure projects such as the replacement of HVAC systems that are past their expected lifespans, upgrading electrical systems, replacing significant portions of old piping in the high school and roof replacement and upkeep for all three school buildings. Additional projects such as updating windows, doors, and flooring were also included in this category.

The question also covers projects that will look to increase the safety and security of students and staff. Adding new secure entries and the rearrangement of spaces that would come with those projects were the biggest ticket item under that umbrella, though getting upgrades to the security camera and fire alarm systems and the continuation of asbestos removal were also noted.

Finally, in hopes of modernizing the district’s learning spaces, projects to update the agriculture and business classrooms in the high school, changing the set up of classrooms in the middle school to accommodate a new STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Math) lab space and additional special education rooms, adding a new greenhouse, and upgrading the cafeteria and high school library into a larger commons area would all be covered under the purview of the first question.

The second question, which would be asking for bonds of $7.7 million, is focused on the potential new elementary addition. The addition, which would add a number of classroom spaces to the north of the elementary building, would provide better rooms for classes like art and music and also give the district the flexibility to move the fourth grade back to the elementary school and the eighth grade back to the middle school. The spaces that the eighth grade currently occupy in the high school could then be used for better digital learning and college courses, as well as ELL and special education spaces.

It was noted by Galligan during the presentation that, if question two were to be approved but question one were to fail, some of the smaller projects under the purview of the second question would have to be revised, as some relied upon projects from the first question being completed.

“If question one doesn’t pass and question two does pass, we would have a quandary because all the things that we’d have to do because of the new construction and ADA compliance would force our hands with some things,” Galligan explained. “We’d probably have to change our budget and come back in April for a different question to try and change some things because I don’t know if we could afford to pay for all of the things that we promised to do in question two if we only did question two.”

In the presentation, the impact on the taxpayer was discussed as well. Numbers were presented for a variety of home values, including for the median home value of $160,000 in the district. According to the figures supplied by the district, the taxpayers with a median value home would see their taxes increase $8.67 per month if both questions were to pass, or roughly $104 per year. Additional resources to find the specific tax impact on your individual residential property can be found at bit.ly/colby-ref24.

Galligan also noted that, for Clark County residents, the two referendum questions will be showing up on the back side of the ballot, so voters should keep that in mind when heading to the polls in November.