JACKSON-MILTON Panel forms to promote bond

The bond issue would raise $12.4 million to build a new school.
NORTH JACKSON -- It may be more than four months before residents vote on a school bond issue, but many school officials, parents and members of the Jackson-Milton School District are wasting no time in trying to get the message out.
Superintendent Buck Palmer said at Thursday's school board meeting that the newly formed Jackson-Milton Facilities Committee is working to raise awareness of the need to pass a 5.4-mill bond issue to be placed on the May 3 ballot.
The bond issue would generate about $12.4 million that would go toward the construction of a new middle school/high school to replace the school built in 1913.
Phases
Palmer said that the school project will be in two phases. Phase I is building the new facility, which could take about one year of planning and designing and two years to complete, and Phase II entails refurbishing the elementary school, which may begin in seven to eight years when the district becomes eligible for state funds, Palmer said.
The committee, made up of 25 to 50 parents, staff and residents, recently divided into four subcommittees, each having a designated set of responsibilities toward ensuring the bond issue's passage, Palmer said.
The 5.4-mill, 28-year bond issue would cost someone living in a home valued at $100,000 about $160 a year, Palmer said.