News Photo by Julie Goldberg Voter Sharon Engstrom, left, casts her ballot as election inspector Vicki Bridge watches Tuesday at the Alpena-Montmorency-Alcona Educational Service District building.

ALPENA — By an overwhelming margin, the Alpena Public Schools’ $63 million bond proposal failed on Tuesday.

The vote was rejected with 4,250 votes against and 2,549 votes for the proposal, with all precincts reporting, according to unofficial results Tuesday. That means the proposal failed by a more than 60%-to-40% margin.

The rejection was complete. Out of 19 precincts across Alpena County and Presque Isle County in the school district, only three precincts went for the proposal. In Wellington Township, fewer than one in 10 voters supported the proposal.

The district asked voters for permission to sell $63 million in bonds, to be repaid over the next 25 years through increased property taxes. The plan for the bond money was for major facilities upgrades at school buildings throughout the district. The proposal did not include a new property tax rate, which instead would have been set yearly based on annual bond payments and taxable values. In the first year, it was estimated taxes would rise by about 1.9 mills, or $95 a year for the owner of a $100,000 house.

Superintendent John VanWagoner said Tuesday the district is disappointed that the bond proposal didn’t pass.

“We have had a chance to have dialogue with the community and hear their thoughts and we know there are things they want to see and understand,” VanWagoner said. “We’ll take that back to our Board of Education and collect that data and look at it hard, and then the board will decide what they feel the next steps are and try to resolve our facility issues.”

The school board is scheduled to meet at 6 p.m. Thursday. It is likely the election results will be discussed.

“We appreciate all the voters that did come out and as we move forward, we want to continue to try to reach as many people as we can,” VanWagoner said.

VanWagoner said that, though the vote failed, there are still issues in the district involving safety and security. He said roofs and boilers have passed their life expectancy in several buildings.

Out of about 20,000 voters in Alpena County, over 6,700 cast ballots on Tuesday. VanWagoner said the district did everything within its means to educate voters about the bond proposal.

“With it being an election that is during May, you don’t generally have the opportunity to get as many voters as a governor election or presidential election or something major on the ballot like that,” VanWagner said. “So, as far as that goes, the turnout is very similar to the last couple of votes that have happened on off dates.”

It wasn’t immediately clear what may have turned voters off to the proposal. In the weeks since the board voted to put the proposal on the ballot, several residents have complained about the tax increase, especially since property owners are still paying off the district’s last bonds from the late 1990s. Others have questioned the need for some of the projects planned for the money, including the district’s proposal to tear down and rebuild most of Ella White Elementary School.

Some voters also appeared to have some confusion about the district’s finances. Several people commented on social media that they were against the proposal because the district should make money off of recreational marijuana. While schools will get a share of revenue from the sale of marijuana around the state, it won’t be anywhere near the $63 million APS hoped to raise.

Julie Goldberg can be reached at 989-358-5688 or jgoldberg@thealpenanews.com. Follow her on Twitter @jkgoldberg12.