Hillsboro R-3 School District voters will find two propositions on their April 5 ballot – one for a $25 million bond issue and the other for a 40-cent tax shift from the district’s debt service levy to its operating levy.
The Board of Education voted 6-0 during a Jan. 5 special meeting to place the propositions on the ballot.
The bond issue requires a 4/7 majority (57.1 percent) to pass, and the tax shift requires a simple majority.
Superintendent Jon Isaacson said the propositions are intended to provide funding for a variety of improvements around the district.
“We have some immediate facility needs and some long-range needs,” he told board members.
Isaacson said among the district’s immediate needs is to install turn lanes and a crosswalk at the intersection of Leon Hall Parkway and Business 21, as well as build a sidewalk along Leon Hall Parkway, all to improve safety for students and other pedestrians.
“We would be working with the city as far as the intersection, but Leon Hall Parkway is ours,” he said.
Isaacson said another improvement needed sooner rather than later is building a new athletic facility at the Hillsboro High School campus, 123 Leon Hall Parkway.
Currently the football team practices at the district’s field behind Hillsboro Intermediate School, 10478 Business 21, which poses several logistical problems, he said.
“We also need an athletic facility that includes locker rooms, a wrestling facility, a weight-training facility to replace the existing fieldhouse behind the Intermediate,” Isaacson said. “The old football field would be repurposed.”
District officials also want to replace the grass on the district’s baseball field with turf and renovate the front entrance to the high school to make it more secure.
“We would build vocational buildings at the (the district’s Bridle Ridge Acres farm in Hillsboro),” Isaacson said.
He said other possible bond issue projects are being developed.
“We haven’t itemized the projects yet,” he said.
“The 40-cent shift would be to invest for long-term capital projects in the future so we can start paying cash instead of borrowing (for such projects),” Isaacson added.
The district’s current tax rate is $4.5679 per $100 assessed valuation.
While the bond issue would not increase the district’s tax rate, it would extend the district’s bond debt by no more than eight years, from 2037 to approximately 2045, Hillsboro R-3 chief operating officer Kelly Genge said.
The tax shift would not raise the tax levy either, but taxes levied to pay bond debt expire after the bonds are paid off, so transferring the 40 cents into the general operating fund would make that tax permanent.
If the tax shift is approved, the district’s operating levy would increase to an estimated $3.7746 per $100 assessed valuation, and the district’s debt service levy would decrease to $0.7933 per $100 assessed valuation, Isaacson said.
He said even with passage of both measures it’s possible the district’s tax rate could decrease depending on assessments and potential Prop C rollbacks.