Bond nixed, Alcona Community Schools to make do
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ALPENA -- Alcona Community Schools is preparing to have tough conversations about how to fund facility repairs now that voters have rejected the district's $20 million bond proposal.
"We're gonna move forward within our budget like we have in the past and do the best we can," Warren MacNeill, vice president of the Alcona Community Schools Board of Education, said Wednesday. "Some of the schools are 65 years old, so we're looking at some pretty hefty infrastructure updates that need to happen. There are 700 people a day that walk through the doors of that building one way or another, and things wear out. It's the busiest building in the county."
The $20 million raised by the sale of bonds would have allowed renovations to happen throughout the district. The proposal also would have raised property taxes by an estimated 2.2 mills, costing the owner of a $100,000 house about $110 a year over the next 20 years.
Voters rejected the proposal 63% to 37%.
Without that bond money, Alcona Superintendent Dan O'Connor said, the district will need to rely on money from its sinking fund to address renovations.
The sinking fund is money collected from a 1-mill property tax that costs the owner of a $100,000 house about $50 a year. Voters last approved that tax in 2020.
According to O'Connor, not all repairs are eligible for sinking fund use. For example, the district can't tap that fund for classroom furniture, lockers, or bleachers.
However, with sinking fund money, "we've been able to redo all of our roofs, update our original 1956 windows on the high school, tear out carpet and convert it to polished concrete," said O'Connor. "We've been able to update our canopy in the front of the high school, which was deteriorating, and replace our boilers at the high school."
According to O'Connor, the sinking fund tax usually generates about $500,000 a year. However, thanks to some leftover funds from the previous school year, O'Connor said the school district has around $700,000.
O'Connor said the district needs between $20 million to $30 million in renovations.
MacNeill said the school board will need to have a serious conversation about what current repairs at the school should take priority.
"We're gonna have to get together and have some pretty serious group discussions about what needs to be prioritized and what needs to be fixed and updated first," said MacNeill. "The sinking fund, which is about half a million dollars a year for a now multimillion-dollar facility, is not that much, but it's kept us going."
Voters in Onaway Area Schools also rejected bond proposals on Tuesday.
It wasn't immediately clear what Onaway officials planned to do, as they could not be reached for comment on Wednesday.