(Milford)– It’s official: a $69 million bond issue will be on the ballot in the November election for voters in the Okoboji Community School District. The school board officially took action this (Wed.) morning to move the bond proposal forward after getting more than the required number of signatures on a petition calling for the vote. Superintendent Todd Abrahamson…
“We ended up with 1,175 signatures. We needed 971 so it went far above the 971 so just a big shout out to those volunteers. Now we can put the petition on the November 5th ballot for the upcoming bond.”
Abrahamson says a series of public informational meetings will be held between now and the November 5th election…
“To our public, there will be a lot of information coming your way. We’ll hold community meetings. We’ll get more details out on when those dates and times will be, but right now we’re going to go through that milestone schedule to identify all of the dates and times and information that we need to get out to our public.”
Abrahamson admits they don’t have a whole lot of time to do that…
“It’s kind of the way it’s going to be now since you can only go to the voters once a year now in the month of November, so. We did our due diligence for us. Our board has spent well over a year, a year and-a-half, working through this process. This just wasn’t something that we just did at a snap. I appreciate the board’s work on this over the last year and-a-half as we prepare now to go to the voters in November. We’ll share all those details on how we landed on the $69 million, the cost. Our tax rate’s going to stay the same at $9.25 so the tax rate’s not going to increase and we can explain how that is.”
Abrahamson again says that amount will be offset by the continued growth in property valuations in the Okoboji Community School District.
If approved, the measure would allow for the construction of a new elementary school on land the district recently purchased at the intersection of County Road A-34 and 213th Avenue on the west edge of Milford. It would also allow for some improvements and expansions at the high school.
