Bayfield School Board members committed this week to a plan to build a new school for third through fifth grades south of the middle school, and to do major renovation at the elementary school for grades K-2.
The goal is to get the young kids out of the Bayfield Primary School (BPS) on South Street as soon as possible.
The board faced a Feb. 26 deadline to have the district's application for a state BEST grant to the Colorado Department of Education. Committing to a specific construction plan was an essential part of the grant application. The plan also requires a bond issue.
Superintendent Troy Zabel noted Tuesday evening that a recent community survey showed very strong support for the most expensive ($38.9 million) of three options presented in the survey. The other options were a cheaper ($35.8 million) plan to build a new K-2 school and do much less renovation at BES for grades 3-5; and the low cost estimate of no new construction and install two additional modular buildings with two classrooms each at BPS. That option received the least support in the survey.
The survey also asked whether responders would favor asking for a bond issue.
The survey ended on Feb. 4, Zabel said, and 309 people responded. "That's a great response rate for surveys we've done," he said. Seventy-six percent of responders were favorable to a bond issue, and 55.48 percent favored the option that the board ended up choosing. The second option was supported by 24.92 percent of responders, and the modulars were favored by just under 20 percent.
"It shows we are on the right track," Zabel continued.
The $38.9 million cost estimate for the chosen option would be reduced by whatever might be covered by a BEST grant. The rest would dictate a bond issue amount.
Much of the discussion Tuesday night involved strategies to maximize the chance of getting the grant, including how much to ask for. Zabel said there is $65 million available this year for the grants. There's a possibility for an additional $20 million into the grant pot from the state legislature. There will probably be applications from 50 or 60 districts, he said.
The most the district can ask for is about $11 million, but Zabel suggested asking for $8.5 million. Grants are awarded all or nothing, and if the district asks for too much, it could get nothing. "I'm really nervous about an $11 million ask," he said.
An $8.5 million grant would leave around $30.4 million to be covered by a bond issue, Zabel said. That would cost the owner of a $280,000 house $192 a year in property taxes, he said. The $30.4 million would be below the district's debt capacity. If the district has to bond for $38.9 million, the additional debt capacity is pretty much gone, he said.
"It will be a tough sell (to voters) no matter what. It's a lot of money," he said.
"The survey has given direction," he said. "I would hate to divert from that."
Another part of the strategy is to package the grant application for the entire project rather than for the new school or to renovate BES. It's all part of the package to get kids moved out of BPS, Zabel said. It will take the whole package to make it work.
Marty Zwisler, the district's owners representative for the project, said the grant application will state the goal to move kids out of the old BPS building. "It's very clear that spending money to make that facility suitable (for kids) would cost a lot more than the building is worth. And it wouldn't address the crowding there. Anybody at BEST who studies this will see we need a new school."
The board is scheduled to formally approve and sign the grant application at its Feb. 23 meeting.
