DELTA: DETERIORIATION OF BUILDINGS PROMPTS VOTE

DELTA -- Voters in the Delta R-V School District face a quandary in the April 6 election. Their deteriorating high school needs replacing, but no one knows whether students will even be attending high school in Delta within a few years.

About 60 people turned out Monday for an informational meeting at the school about the upcoming $1.05 million school bond election, and many of them sounded concerns about keeping a school in the town.

Their questions arise because of new minimum-size regulations being deliberated at the state level that may force small districts such as 360-student Delta to consolidate.

Superintendent Larry Beshears said a consolidation with the nearby Chaffee school district is a future possibility, but he told the group that upgrading the district's facilities probably is the best way to guarantee that either a middle school or high school remains in Delta.

"If you don't have buildings you sure aren't going to have anything here," Beshears said.

A number of parents said they want their children to continue to receive the benefits of attending a small school, but one questioned whether Delta students are getting the education they need to compete in college.

"I don't want it all put in a building," he said. "I want it put everywhere."

District voters are being asked to approve a bond issue that would pay for a 19,900-square foot addition to the Lowell Jones Building, which is located behind the old high school.

The addition would include a library, and classrooms for special education, business, home economics and science classrooms, a cafeteria, a multipurpose area, and offices for the principal, superintendent, health services and the secretarial staff.

The bond issue, which requires a four-sevenths majority, also would enable the district to renovate the elementary school heating and cooling units, repair roofs at both schools, demolish the old high school and buy equipment for the addition.

Classes were canceled at the high school for two days in January because of a crumbling wall. School officials contend that the cost of bringing the 52-year-old building up to current codes is prohibitive.

If the bond issue fails to pass, they say they will move the seventh- and eighth-grade students into the elementary school and the high school students into the Jones building.

The Jones building was constructed in 1977 and its bonds are two years from retirement. The new bond issue would consolidate the current debt service of 27 cents per $100 assessed valuation with a new debt of 53 cents for a total of 80 cents.

The increased tax on a $20,000 home would amount to $20.14 annually. The owner of a $50,000 home would pay an additional $50.35 in yearly taxes.

The district, which has a current school tax levy of $2.68 per $100 assessed valuation, would retire the new bonds in 20 years.

Last April, Delta voters rejected a 61-cent tax increase that would have paid for building improvements.

Beshears is concerned that failure to pass the proposed bond issue will force the district to spend its approximately $200,000 in reserves to make essential renovations, including earthquake retrofitting.

He told the informational meeting the district's financial well-being could be jeopardized, putting it on the state watch list and subject to a loss of local control.

Delta R-V students come from Whitewater, Allenville, Randles, Dutchtown, Crump, Arbor and Bollinger County in addition to Delta.