MARION BOARD PASSES SECOND BOND RESOLUTION
Officials lower ask by $500K, keep majority of building project in tact; election to take place June 4
Voters living in the Marion School District will have, not one, but two elections of local relevance this coming spring.
In addition to an April 9 election that will decide a four-way race for two seats on the school board between incumbents Scott Tieszen and Jared Schmidt and challengers Kyle Gossen and David Pankratz, voters will also weigh in on a second general obligation bond to help fund a major capital project that would update the district’s campus.
Meeting in regular session Monday night, March 11, the Marion School Board passed a resolution $6 million in new taxes to cover more than half of Phases 1 and 2 of a master plan generated by CO-OP Architecture, with whom the district has been working with for the past year. The special bond election will coincide with the general election on Tuesday, June 4.
The $6 million ask of voters is a half-million dollars less than the original bond resolution passed by the board last November that failed to reach the 60% majority threshold. The first election on Jan. 16 earned 51.15% support and fell 45 affirmative votes short of approval.
The second bond election is the result of district leadership working with CO-OP Architecture to trim the scale of the project while still keeping the overall vision intact.
“It’s a little bit of here, a little bit of there,” first-year superintendent Brian Brosnahan said of the reduction in square footage that lowers the overall project cost from $11.6 million to $10.9 million. The balance would be paid using capital outland funds on hand and capital outlay certificates, which do not increase taxes and are not subject to a vote.
“They were able to cut some square footage; we lose some storage areas and the commons and library shrink a little bit, and we took out a second elevator,” he said, “but we would still be able to do the majority of the project as originally presented.”
The second bond resolution would increase taxes $1.04 per 1,000 taxable valuation, with farming implications of $2.07 per acre based on the average assessed valuation of a home or farmland.
Brosnahan told The Courier early this week that he likes the direction the board is taking.
“I do,” he said. “I believe the board feels this is the vision and the direction that the Marion School District needs to go; our school and staff is looking to improve in every aspect that we can and striving to grow.”
Brosnahan highlights stability at the administrative level between himself and K-12 principal Bill Leberman and the growth the district saw in enrollment this past year.
“We’re hoping to continue that upward trend,” he said. “Hopefully community members will see that and make decisions accordingly.”
The superintendent also noted that he has heard the question raised, “how is this going to impact education.”
His response?
“How is it not? When you’re improving your facilities and making sure they’re in tip-top shape, being positive, and clear about the direction you want to go, it’s going to make an impact.
“In order to keep up with the trends and the times, you need to have facilities that meet those needs,” Brosnahan continued. “This will be a good step forward for our school and our town.”
