Oakesdale bond proposal tops school fund requests

Oakesdale tops the list of school district proposals for the Feb. 11 with a request for a $7,160,000 bond issue which would extend over 26 years.

Approval of the bond issue would qualify the district for additonal state funding of approximately $4 million for the project, which would involve complete rennovatons of the district’s three buildings, the high school, elementary school and the gym, according to Supt. Jake Dingman.

The school projecxt would involve heating and air conditioning, water system improvements, windows and bringing the buildings into with the Americans with Disabilities Act. It would also upgrade the technolgy facilities in the buildings.

Oakesdale school board president Cap Perry said the project would involve a complete update to the elementary school. He said that the work at the high school would be extensive, but comply with its status as a historic building.

All of the school structures will remain the same.

“It’s just a culmination of the buildings getting to the point where they are difficult to maintain,” said longtime board member Brian Crow. “Two-thirds of them are still steam heat.”

“We theoretically could be in good shape for another 35 years,”Crow said.

The average annual levy rate to fund the bonds over the 26 year issue of the bonds has been estitmated at $3.90 per $1,000 of assessed value, Dingman said. Current assessed value of the Oakesdale school district is $163.628,624, according to county assessor Joe Reynolds.

Estimated start of the project would be in the summer of 2015 after a year of planning, Dingman added.