001So the board and the district is really really cognizant of of putting these demands on our community. And so we want to make sure that we are paying attention to that. And so for us it was timing. We have about $30 million of bonds coming off right now. And so timing our ask right now to re to have a new bond allows us to ask for $50 million when it's only going to be 20 million in new taxes. And so it's like we can recognize that we can do more with the money now by asking for it now and not creating a extra burden on the community beyond what we think would be comfortable. I definitely understand someone being concerned about the cost. But the maintenance needs that we're looking at tackling are never going
002to decrease. The buildings are going to continue to age, so it needs to happen. That list only gets longer. And the construction costs and things like that only continue increasing as inflation rises, too. So this is actually the fiscally responsible time to do it because waiting longer there could be some kind of catastrophic event that forces our hand. And then we don't get to prioritize the things that make the most sense for our community. The school board takes a lot of time and consideration when we make these decisions because we want to make sure that we are spending the money that is entrusted to us in the way that makes the most sense and gets the best value for our community. We created a committee to take a look at what are the needs the
003facility needs of our district. Over $150 million worth of projects that need to be addressed. And that's just because our buildings are part of our history. But they're like the average age of our six buildings, I looked it up, it's like 73 years old. You got to take care of the things that you have, and we've done a really good job of taking care of We've identified this list. How do we take care of what we have? How do we take care of this? And then we created a task force that came together to help us prioritize. Like there are so many things that we could tackle, and there's no way that we're going to be able to ask the community for $150 at once. We know that that's beyond what's comfortable. If the community
004supports this $50 bond opportunity, there is so much that we can do that will make a huge impact to make sure that our buildings are here for the future, and that they're safe and ready for learning right now. There's no other way for us to manage this. We have to ask the community to support us.