School bond proposal marches toward ballot

MAT-SU -- A proposal to build $80 million worth of new school facilities is now in the hands of the Mat-Su Borough Assembly.

Last week the Mat-Su school board finalized a bond proposal and referred it to the borough assembly, where it will be up for public hearing next month. With the assembly's approval, the bond packages would appear before Mat-Su voters in an April 1 special election.

Board members appear to be hopeful that once the construction bonds make it that far, they have a good chance of surviving.

"With the history of this community … I'm pretty optimistic that we're going to be able to sell this to the public," member Rob Wells said, referring to the $100 million worth of projects local voter accepted in the 1990s.

In the meantime, however, the assembly can reject individual projects or the entire bond proposal. The assembly can also group the projects into different packages for voters to give thumbs up or down to.

During last week's meeting, the board recommended grouping the 13 construction projects into two packages.

The first consists of those the state has agreed to reimburse at 70 percent, with the local taxpayers paying the remaining 30 percent of the tab. These projects are a $3.5 million remodel of the old Sherrod Elementary into an administration building and $2.1 million in maintenance work such as sprinklers at Palmer Jr. Middle School, fire alarms at several schools, siding and doors at Big Lake Elementary and ventilation improvements at Colony High.

The second package consists of projects not approved by the state Department of Education so therefore only eligible for 60-percent reimbursement from the state. This is where the bulk of the $80 million would be spent.

These projects include a nearly $19 million career center, a $12 million nutrition service facility and the resulting $4 million remodel of Iditarod Elementary where nutrition services is currently housed, a $12 million new Wasilla-area elementary, a $12 million new Palmer-area elementary and $1 million for the second phase of construction at Valley Pathways.

This second package also includes new facilities for the district's two charter schools -- nearly $8 million for The Academy and $8 million for Midnight Sun Family Learning Center.

Much of the discussion at last week's board meeting revolved not around whether all of these projects should be included but how they should be grouped on the ballot. Each package is an all-or-nothing vote. In some cases, the presence of certain projects could make the package more appealing to voters, in other cases less appealing.

Interim Superintendent Bob Doyle said he feared having maintenance projects be turned down because they were lumped with an administration building, often not as favored by voters. At the same time, charter school advocates told the board they would like their construction project included with others so as to improve the odds of the entire package passing.

In the end, however, board members seemed to agree that the exact appearance of the projects on the ballot can still be debated as the bond proposal moves through the assembly.