Dunklin R-5 School District voters will be asked Aug. 7 to approve a $6 million bond issue to fund improvements at Pevely Elementary School.
The measure would result in an 18-cent increase to the school district’s tax levy, Superintendent Stan Stratton said.
The bond issue, called Proposition S, requires a 4/7 majority (57.14 percent) vote for approval.
The Dunklin district would use revenue from the bond issue to construct a 12-classroom addition on the west side of Pevely Elementary School, which enrolls about 715 students, Stratton said.
If the addition is completed, the district would eliminate the two modular buildings, with two classrooms in each, that are set up outside the school, Stratton said.
He said the addition would provide more space for some small group classes, like speech pathology, which currently meet in rooms that once were closets.
Stratton said the project also would include the expansion of the elementary school cafeteria, as well as the relocation of the district’s bus garage, which is now housed at the elementary school.
Some of the revenue from the bond issue would be used to provide a 25 percent match for a $1.4 million grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to build a storm shelter in the addition, he said.
“So, if we don’t get the bond issue, we won’t be able to take the grant,” Stratton said. “We don’t want to lose that grant because the district wouldn’t have to fund that amount (of the overall project). Prop S will allow us to take the $6 million in local dollars and the $1.4 million in federal dollars and have the federal government pay almost 19 percent of construction costs (for the improvements).”
Stratton said all those improvements would benefit students.
“The project will meet the needs at Pevely Elementary and will make it more safe because of the storm shelter. It also will make that site more safe because (by relocating the bus garage), we will be able to put the parent pickup and drop-off behind the school. With it in front of the school now, it gets congested and backs up on Main Street.”
The district’s current tax levy is $4.69 per $100 assessed valuation, with 67 cents of that for the district’s debt service fund, he said.
The district asked voters to approve a 62-cent tax increase in August 2016 and again in November 2016, but both measures failed.
Stratton said district taxpayers thought those increases were too large, so school officials came back to them with a smaller request.
The owner of a home valued at $100,000 by the Jefferson County Assessor’s Office would pay an extra $34.20 in annual real estate property taxes, if the measure passes. Taxes are charged on 19 percent of a home’s value, per $100 assessed valuation.