The City Council of South Sioux City is on board with a proposed school bond issue that voters will decide this November.
At Monday’s City Council meeting, the board unanimously approved a resolution in support of a proposed $95 million bond issue that the school district will ask local taxpayers to approve in the Nov. 3 general election, which is less than five weeks away.
(NOTE: At Monday’s meeting, the vote was 7-1 in favor. Councilman Dan Bousquet said he accidentally voted “no” instead of “yes” and city officials were looking to see if his vote could be changed after the fact.)
The approved resolution doesn’t mention the specific bond issue, but supported the school district’s efforts.
“Be it hereby resolved by Mayor Koch and the South Sioux City Council; that we support the South Sioux City School Board, serving South Sioux City and Dakota City area residents in providing a sound path to providing a fiscally responsible method to construct new needed school buildings in our community,” the resolution stated.
SSC Community Schools superintendent Dr. Rony Ortega discussed the proposal, which will construct two new buildings — one on the west side of town that will include students in grades K-4 and a second that will be constructed just south of Siouxland Freedom Park that will be for students in grades 5-6. Moving these students will open up space in the existing buildings at Cardinal, Harney and Dakota City Elementary. The district’s two oldest buildings — Covington and Lewis & Clark — will be shut down.
Ortega said the new proposal cut 25 percent off the district’s original ask, a $127 million bond that was voted down by a 3-to-2 margin in May of last year.
“We knew the first bond issue was a big ask, and after it failed, we came back and listened to the people,” he said. “We had a lot of engagement with the community, and what we learned was the majority of the community understands our facilities are aging and overcrowded, but prefer a smaller, phased-in approach and prefer that the tax levy would not increase.”
If approved by voters, the bond would be paid for through the district’s building fund. School districts can set aside up to 14 cents per dollar to a building fund and borrow against that account, which allows them to maintain the current levy of 86 cents per $100 of valuation.
“We intend to run the district on 72 cents and use the other 14 cents to go to our building fund to cover the mortgage payment,” Ortega sid.
Ortega said the district has worked hard to pay off past debts, including the last bond issue that was approved more than a quarter-century ago. The district has also renegotiated several existing contracts and has lowered its levy each of the past four years.
Councilman Jim Gunsolley, a former school board member, said he liked the approach the school is taking to finance the $95 million proposal.
“I was on the school board when we passed the last bond issue, and I like the way you’re doing this,” he told Ortega.
In other action, the Council:
— approved Mayor Rod Koch’s nomination of Jason Guthmiller to the city’s Design Commission.
— approved a resolution for the Westside connecting trail
— approved second reading of an ordinance that would allow the city to sell the baseball fields at Klasey Park to the school district.
— heard from City Parks director Gene Maffit, who said the state is asking the city to conduct a tree inventory to determine how many ash trees are on city property. The study would be paid for by a grant.
The City Council’s next scheduled meeting is Tuesday, Oct. 13 at 5 p.m. at City Hall. The meeting is being moved back one day in observation of the Columbus Day holiday.
