Shawnee Mission district to vote on a $223 million bond issue

The Shawnee Mission School District board on Monday unanimously approved asking voters on a mail-in ballot in January for a $223 million bond issue to pay for upgraded security, new and remodeled schools and a state-of-the-art aquatics center, among other projects.

The board also unanimously approved putting before voters on the same ballot a proposal to permanently maintain the district’s local option budget authority of 33 percent of the general fund, an increase from 31 percent, which the Kansas Legislature allowed this year. State statute requires a mail-in vote on the local option measure.

Commonly called an LOB, the local-option money is used to supplement state funding for school district operating expenses, such as salaries.

The Olathe school board last week also approved asking voters to extend the local-option budget authority to 33 percent. The Blue Valley and DeSoto boards are set to vote Monday. Gardner-Edgerton’s board agreed in September to put the extension up for a vote. Spring Hill’s LOB stands at 30 percent and its board has not discussed increasing it.

The mail-in ballots in Olathe, Shawnee Mission and Gardner-Edgerton will be due by noon Jan. 27, as would the Blue Valley and De Soto ballots.

The local option measure is important, Shawnee Mission board President Deb Zila said, because it’s the district’s opportunity to raise money locally for schools.

“The local option budget is our only chance to add to our operating fund locally,” she said. “So, to have that increase — and it will go on in perpetuity — is fabulous.”

Shawnee Mission’s bond for capital expenses would not need a property tax increase.

“We haven’t had a bond since 2004,” Zila said. “There are just a lot of things when you have the number of buildings we have that need upgrades and improvements, and times change a lot in 11 or 12 years.

“This aquatics center is a part of that — that’s very exciting for the district,” she said. “New elementary schools, upgrades to each and every building, all of our security measures — it’s something we really want to do across the district.”

Zila said she was hopeful that voters would approve the measure.

“Our supporters have been wonderful in the past — our community — and have never not supported a bond issue,” she said. “I think they will see the importance of this. I think they care deeply about our schools. I’m very hopeful that this will run the same course as all of our previous bond issues.”

If the bond measure were to fail, the district would have to work with the capital outlay it has, Zila said.

“We have an annual (property tax) mill levy for capital outlay,” she said. “So, all of our projects would have to be very piecemeal. And our property taxes are the absolute lowest in Johnson County from all the school districts.”

District Superintendent Jim Hinson said he wasn’t surprised that the board approved putting both measures before voters and was confident voters would approve both.

“We conducted a couple of different surveys of our community,” Hinson said. “We surveyed our employees, as well. We’ve had countless community meetings. The message has been very loud and clear.

“So, I think we’re simply responding to the request — direction, really — from our community and our employees,” he said. “We’re doing what we were asked to do.”

Hinson said last month that his top priorities for use of the bond money would include safety and security projects for all of the district’s school buildings; continuation of the district’s technology initiative; replacement of the district’s 20-year-old air-conditioning systems; and razing and rebuilding five elementary school buildings in the five high school feeder areas: Rhein Benninghoven, Crestview, Trailwood, Briarwood and an undetermined school in the West feeder area.

The other projects the proposed bond measure would fund:

▪ Separate cafeterias and gyms in each elementary school.

▪  Remodeling to make full-service kitchens in all schools, so that all food would be prepared where it is served.

▪ Install Taraflex floors in all elementary school gyms that have carpet.

▪ Move early education sites comprising three or four classrooms to each of the district’s five high school feeder areas, and raze the Shawnee Mission Instructional Support Center.

▪ Replace practice field turf at high schools and middle schools.

▪  Replace roofs, and floor and ceiling tiles. All buildings will need some degree of work on these items.

▪  Upgrade the little theaters in all high schools.

▪ Upgrade furniture and media centers.

▪ Perform structural work on the district stadium at Shawnee Mission South High School.

▪ Build a state-of-the-art aquatics center, which would enable hosting any meets and offering free swimming lessons for all second- and third-graders.

The district also is in talks with a YMCA for the possibility of attaching a structure to the proposed aquatics center for a YMCA facility. It would serve as a student and employee wellness center and would be open to the public. The YMCA would handle its operation. The proposal’s details haven’t been finalized.

▪ Upgrade some pools in the existing five high schools.

This story was originally published October 8, 2014 at 8:28 AM with the headline "Shawnee Mission district to vote on a $223 million bond issue."