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Poland school officials to host bond campaign meeting
POLAND
School officials will host an organizational meeting to kick off the campaign for a bond issue and tax levy the school district will have on the November ballot.
Community members interested in assisting with the campaign are invited to attend the meeting at 7 p.m. Tuesday at the Poland Middle School connector. The purpose is to put together campaign committees, Superintendent David Janofa said.
The campaign supports a ballot measure to authorize the school district to issue bonds – to be repaid over a maximum 34-year period – in the amount of $28,265,910, to levy a 4-mill property tax to pay for the bond and to levy an additional 0.5-mill property tax.
Bond funds would be used to build a new school, and the 0.5-mill levy would be used to maintain it. The plan would be to construct a new kindergarten- through eighth-grade building at the current site of Dobbins Elementary.
The $28 million represents the local share of the project cost; state funds would cover 19 percent of the approximately $35 million cost.
Tuesday’s meeting marks the first campaign step, Janofa said. Campaign-committee structure will be a topic at the meeting.
“Just in short conversation, we’re probably going to have some social media responsibilities, sign responsibilities, fundraising responsibilities, conceptual idea – meaning what a building would look like, a website, communications with other media other than social,” Janofa said. “We’ll divide up into committees and kind of get an idea of where we want to go moving forward.”
Community members also soon will be invited to a series of town-hall meetings about the bond issue and plan to build a new school, Janofa said. Those forums will be set up sometime next week and will take place at several schools in the next month.