(Lake Park)– Committees to inform residents of the Harris-Lake Park Community School District of an $18.6 million dollar bond referendum met for the first time Tuesday evening. Travis Squires, Managing Director for Piper Sandler, presented the financial information and what it would mean for farmers and homeowners if the measure passes…
“If we’re looking dollars per acre as an example, tax impact might be around five dollars, maybe as high as six dollars per acre in terms of tax increase. So depending on the size of your farm, quality of the farmland, you might fluctuate a little bit from there but that’s probably a good average to start with. I don’t have any data on the average size of the house. We typically look at $100,000 increments. So if we’re looking at an increment of a $100,000 house it’s probably about $15 per month higher than it was a year ago. But again I think the district has enjoyed some lower taxes over the last 10 years than they did previously and one of the things we went back and looked at is overall tax rate when the last bond issue passed was actually closer to $13 per thousand, so about 50 cents higher than what this new bond issue passage would be.”
Squires added that depending upon interest rates, property valuations and state funding, the district could opt to pay off the debt earlier, reducing future interest costs. Should the measure fail, Squires says bringing it back for another vote would present additional challenges…
“Yeah, I think the new voting laws have made it more difficult to be able to bring back projects. So at least you’re looking at a year delay on the project if this vote were to not pass. Because the earliest they could vote again would be November ’24, on the presidential election date.”
Squires notes Harris-Lake Park is joining a lot of other districts around the state that will have bond measures on the ballot in November…
“We’re seeing similar size projects for similar size districts with similar tax impacts so in our mind we see enough of these that it’s not that out of the ordinary and this will be an unprecedented year of voting. We’ll probably see about 10 percent of the school districts in Iowa with bond votes this year.”
The measure, if approved by 60 percent of those who vote in the November election, would allow for the construction of a new elementary school adjacent to the middle school/high school building in Lake Park.
