Oakesdale and Colton schools on April 26 ballot

Ballots will be put in the mail tomorrow, Friday, for 1,262 voters in the Colton and Oakesdale school districts to decide on bond measures that will fund construction projects to update their school buildings.

Ballots are due back at the county’s new elections office by April 26. This election will be the first to be held in the half-million dollars elections office which opened March 3.

Late registration remains open until April 18 to district residents who have never before registered to vote in this state.

Both schools will receive additional funding through the state superintendent’s office if voters give approval to the bond measures.

Colton School District voters will see a revised bond proposal for their school on the ballot. The school remodel measure fell 40 votes shy of receiving the required 60 percent approval on last November’s ballot.

Colton school officials in January conducted two public meetings to ask citizens for input on why the bond failed. With those comments, Superintendent Nate Smith and the committee working on the project sat down in February and reduced the proposed bond amount.

The revised request reduced the bond request $164,000, from $5,160,000 to $4,996,000.

Those changes to the remodel included the school gymnasium and the bus garage. There will be less changes to the walls of the school than originally planned. The bus garage will be smaller.

The proposal calls for a 20-year-issue for the bonds.

If approved, Colton would receive more than $5 million in a match from the state. There are 695 voters in the Colton/Uniontown school district.

Oakesdale School District is asking its voters to approve $4.2 million in 20-year bonds to remodel the buildings on its 78-year-old campus. Ballots will be sent out to 567 voters.

The district would use the funds to build a new cafeteria and commons building, to remodel the school gymnasium and to modernize wiring, plumbing and heating and cooling systems in all the school buildings.

Voter approval of the $4.2 million local request would result in a $4.7 million match grant from the state.