Leaner plan going to voters

There were no door-to-door campaigns, no telephone surveys and no building tours this time around.

Jackson superintendent Dr. Ron Anderson's message about the bond issue on Tuesday's ballot is still the same, though: Our students need these improvements now.

The urgency to fix overcrowding and safety issues at Jackson High School led district officials to crop the original $27 million plan for renovations after it fell short of voter approval in November and April elections.

This time around, voters will face a $19.8 million proposal that requires only 50 percent approval to pass instead of the four-sevenths required in the last two elections.

About 34,000 square feet have been shaved off the original plan, including the elimination of a new agriculture/industrial arts building, part of the library and six classrooms.

Site work, such as a new practice football field, has been eliminated, and remodeling expenses have been curbed. The events center, which would be used for athletics and music/ choir concerts, will still be built with a 2,200-person capacity but will only have 1,500 seats initially to cut back on costs.

Instead of being torn down as was originally planned, the old "A" building will be used as an alternative school and space for extra classrooms. The current Primary Annex, which houses kindergartners across from the high school, will become the agriculture/industrial arts building.

"We basically dissected the plan and put it back together like a puzzle to see what we could salvage and what we couldn't," said Anderson.

The salvageable parts include a new but smaller classroom building, two new art rooms and a new kitchen and commons/cafeteria space. The campus, which is currently made up of several separate buildings, will still be housed under one roof in the new plan.

The plan changes include a new form of funding known as a lease purchase option. That method calls for the sale of leasehold revenue bonds, similar to the sale of general obligation bonds used in a more traditional building project.

District officials say the lease purchase option is not unusual. The same method of funding was used in the construction of Orchard Elementary, the multipurpose building at Jackson High School as well as projects outside the district such as the Show Me Center and the Cape Girardeau County Jail.

A lease purchase option is repaid differently from general obligation bonds. Instead of money coming from the district's debt service levy to make bond payments over a 20-year period, the money to pay for the lease purchase bonds comes from a district's capital projects fund.

Because of that, voters are being asked to approve a 49-cent increase in the district's tax levy ceiling -- which is currently set at $3.12 per $100 assessed valuation. Jim Welker, assistant superintendent of finances, said the new levy ceiling would be approximately $3.61 as stated on the ballot.

The district also has a debt-service levy of about 19 cents per $100 assessed valuation, which is used to pay off previous bond issues.

The district's total levy -- the combination of the levy ceiling and debt service levy -- right now is $3.31. The April bond issue called for a 67-cent increase to the debt-service levy, which would have resulted in a total levy of $3.98. The current proposal was reduced to a 49-cent increase for a total levy of $3.80.

That would mean an annual increase of about $93 in property taxes for the owner of a $100,000 home, Welker said.

cmiller@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 128