The Jefferson R-7 Board of Education has voted to place a $14 million bond issue on the April ballot to fund districtwide improvements, including traffic flow upgrades, safety and security upgrades, playground upgrades and new facilities.
The district was poised to look at a similar, smaller bond issue in early 2022, but the announcement of Ameren’s decision to close its Rush Island power plant, which generated more than 10 percent of the district’s annual budget, caused the board to put the brakes on any ballot measure.
Then, in June 2025, Ameren announced plans to convert the former coal-fired Rush Island plant to a $900 million gas-generating and storage facility. Also that year, Buzzi Unicem, another local industry that contributes tax revenue to the district, announced plans to add about $90 million worth of improvements to its plant. Pre-construction work has begun at the $400 million James Hardie plant site in Crystal City, which will generate additional tax revenue for the district. Once all those are in full operation, district officials estimate Jefferson R-7’s assessed valuation of $240 million could nearly double.
With the district’s financial future looking much brighter, R-7 Superintendent David Haug said the time is right to move ahead with the bond issue, expanded and refined from its earlier form.
“The delay has meant we have revisited some things,” he said. “We were able to put together a plan that is more robust, and that will save the district money in the long term.”
Safety is primary
The Jefferson R-7 board voted 6-0 at its Jan. 21 meeting to place Proposition S on the April ballot. Member Pete McPeters was absent from the meeting. The no-tax-increase bond issue will not raise the district’s tax levy, which stands at $4.5967 per $100 assessed valuation, but would extend the life of the district’s current debt. The measure requires a four-sevenths majority for approval.
“You have $8 million (in bond debt) now, out to 2035,” said Tom Pisarkiewicz of L.J. Hart, the district’s bond company. “The limit for a district to have in debt, by statute, is $25 million, so we’d be well within that.
“How long we go out (extend the levy) depends on what you want to do. I lean toward no more than 11 years.”
“We’ve worked hard to stay in a good financial position,” Haug said. “We have been pretty aggressively trying to pay down old bonds and keeping our budget tight, in anticipation of this day.”
Four main projects would be funded through the bond issue:
■ Traffic flow project – The largest item at $7.9 million. Plans call for a new road connecting the high school campus directly to Hwy. 61 with a roundabout intersection. Modifications will be made to Dooling Hollow Road in the area around Danby-Rush Tower Middle School and Selma Baptist Church, designed to better manage traffic patterns and ensure student safety. The parking area at Danby will be expanded and improved.
■ Extracurricular event facilities – A pair of projects totaling about $3.5 million. One would see the construction of on-site restrooms and a concession stand at the football/track stadium. The other would relocate the district softball facility from the R-7 Little League complex across Hwy. 61 to an on-campus location.
■ Campus-wide security systems – About $700,000 would be spent to upgrade security, including the installation of cameras and access-control systems at all four campus buildings.
■ Danby Playground – This area would get a $600,000 upgrade, including surfaces and fencing for basketball, tennis and pickleball courts for students that could also be used by the community.
Once bond funding is assured, the district can apply for cost-sharing and reimbursement programs through MoDOT and the federal Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality (CMAQ) initiative. Material for road and site work also would be sourced from other areas of the campus as a cost-saving measure.
Why not wait?
With cash from new industry on the horizon, why not just wait? Why push for this April?
“It’s all about safety,” Haug said. “We’ve had problems and concerns about the traffic situation for a long time now.”
Traffic congestion along Hwy. 61 has been a top-priority concern for the past few years. The I-55 widening project as well as Hardie-associated road projects have only added to the problem.
“It’s a mess, and we can’t wait until someone gets hurt or worse,” Haug said. “It is imperative that we separate commercial and residential traffic from the daily movement of students, buses and staff.”
He said the district wants to get a jump on the often slow-moving process of applying for federal and state grant money. Putting the bond issue on the ballot now will allow the district to put safety plans in motion as quickly as possible.
“It takes a long time to get anything going through MoDOT,” Haug said. “We don’t want to just wait for the Big Hollow money to come in and start then.”
