The Jackson School Board approved language for a bond issue that, if passed by voters, would allow the school district to borrow $22 million to fund its facilities-improvement plan.

Jackson superintendent John Link said the measure, dubbed “Proposition J,” will go before voters on the April ballot and would not entail a tax-rate increase.

Link said the issue would allow the district to address needs that grow with district enrollment.

“We continue to see increases,” he said, citing this year’s enrollment increase of 113 students.

The school district intends to use the money to improve security, add and renovate classrooms and relocate the ninth-grade class to the high school.

To improve security, Link said the district aims to standardize the access infrastructure at all schools.

The district currently employs a variety of access systems, from swipe-to-enter cards to camera-and-doorbell combinations.

“What we want to do is we want to be consistent across campuses with our entry-level controls,” he said. “We would also look at upgrading certain areas of surveillance and ... we want to make sure we get a mode of [telephone] contact in each classroom.”

Another priority, he said, is adding six to eight classrooms at the middle school, plus renovations there and elsewhere.

He said adding a FEMA-

grade emergency shelter at West Lane Elementary also is part of the plan; however, that could change under Missouri’s new governor, Eric Greitens.

Now-former governor Jay Nixon visited in November to announce the district would receive a grant from FEMA for the shelter project, but the grant won’t be finalized until Jan. 21.

“Until you sign the papers, you just never know,” Link said.

The $22 million cited in the bond issue, Link said, was determined in part by the amount of equity the school district has created by paying down existing bonds, which he said have been in place longer than he’s been superintendent.

“It’s how much revenue you can come up with with the existing tax rate, and extending that bond,” he said. “In layman’s terms, it’s like refinancing your home.”

The bond issue doesn’t mean the facilities-improvement plans will cost $22 million, rather that the district’s budget for the improvements would be up to $22 million. Link said the district won’t have a price for the improvements until they are put out to bid.

If all goes as the district hopes, that could be as soon as June.

The school board already has approved the facilities-improvement plans, wagering the residents will pass the bond issue to fund their implementation.

Link said because it’s not feasible to move classes mid-term as the plans require, the options for completion were August 2018 or August 2019.

“We have such crowded classrooms, we wanted to move as quick as possible,” he said. “So we did kind of take a bit of a chance going ahead and approving the design prior to the bond election. We’re hoping that if the issue does pass in April, we’ll be ahead of the game.”

He said since the school district has sought input from “vast amounts of people from our community in the planning process,” school officials are confident the issue will pass.

“[Residents] understand the need for classroom space,” he said.

If the bond issue fails, Link said the district will try again.

“The students aren’t going to go away if this does not pass,” he said. “Our classrooms are going to go from 25 to 28 to 30 kids, and at some point in time, we’ll have to do something.”

tgraef@semissourian.com

(573) 388-3627