Jacksonville School District 117 officials appear to be ready for a new elementary school to be built in the Murrayville-Woodson area.
The district received a clean financial audit last night. Superintendent Steve Ptacek says that accounting firm PMA also gave the district the green light to call the district’s 2015 bond for refinancing that would potentially free up approximately $17 million for the ability to acquire land and construct a new elementary school. The expected cost of the project is around $20 million. Ptacek says that any remaining money after the bond sale would have to come from the district’s fund balances to pay for the rest.
Ptacek says that a few factors have led to the money being there to tackle a new major project: “Ultimately, we are going to be going out for a new bond that we hope to generate up to potentially up to $17 million dollars. The payment for that bond structure is going to come from two different places: one, it’s going to come from the excess sales tax that we are currently collecting, which our sales tax is in a very healthy position right now; but also, by restructuring the 2015 bond that was for $32 million, we can reduce our annual payment on that bond. That extra savings combined with the excess sales tax, will then cover the cost for the $17 million bond for the new school.”
Ptacek says everything is in the preliminary stages for planning for the new building. He says he’s meeting with a real estate agent this week to begin talks for potential locations of the new building: “Right now, we are looking at putting a new building in somewhere more north of Murrayville, maybe around Woodson. There are three different reasons we want to do that. One, we need to address the age of the 107-year old building at Murrayville-Woodson. We know it can never be made ADA-accessible, so we are answering that need. Also, by locating it more north, we could potentially expand the boundaries into South and Eisenhower, which would then slightly reduce the class sizes. As important if maybe not most important is having a new school up close to the Interstate might provide an area for growth in the county by having people that can work in Springfield, take the interstate, get off the interstate for a new subdivision with a new elementary school. It’s the growth corridor area that we potentially could see development that hopefully in 10-15 years, we are looking back and seeing new businesses, new subdivisions, everything along that corridor.”
Ptacek says there is no new tax burden for the school as it is classified as both a Health-Life-Safety issue and the district will be adding more space to kindergarten and Early Years programming with the new building. Under new state law, districts who add new kindergarten space to buildings do not need to have a referendum for new construction. Ptacek says through the alternative funding source, no new tax burden is coming to residents in the district.
With the board of education’s approval of plans in the coming months, Ptacek believes that bids for the new building could be placed in February or March, with finished construction of the building possibly by the Fall of 2027. Ptacek says for those who own land in the area that would likely possibly donate it to the district to build the new building to reach out to the district office. He says the district isn’t looking for the least expensive site but a site that makes the most logical sense and has the best fit for potential growth and the least amount of long-term problems.
Ptacek told the board that he is ideally looking for a 10-15 acre site in the Woodson area for the best possible location. He says the additional acreage would allow for possible expansion down the line for the district if the region sees growth in that area.
There was no mention about what would happen with the current building located in Murrayville. District engineers say that due to the building being landlocked, it would be difficult to expand on its current site if the building were to be torn down and rebuilt. Engineers have also told the district that due to its age, existing asbestos, and design it would cost too much to renovate to bring it up to current building codes and standards, and that it would actually be less expensive for the district in the long run to build a new building.