(Spirit Lake)– Construction continues on the addition at Spirit Lake Middle School.
A representative of CPMI, a construction management firm, told the school board Monday evening the foundation work is complete and the walls have started going up. That part of the project will take another four to six weeks. The goal is to have the addition enclosed by the middle of January so work on the interior can get underway. The project is still on target for completion this coming August.
Superintendent Tim Grieves reported that based on current projections, it will be awhile before any construction on phase three of the district’s building program would get underway. Grieves reported the district won’t be able to leverage against Local Option Sales Tax revenue until atleast 2006, and any construction wouldn’t get started for another couple of years or so after that. Until then, Grieves says that source is tapped. Grieves told the board there other options that could speed up the process, but they would be dependent upon a favorable vote of the taxpayers. One would be to float a bond issue; the other, Grieves says, would be for a voted-in Physical Plant and Equipment Levy. He says another option would be donations. A new auditorium and gym at the high school are included in that phase at a total estimated cost of 6.75 million dollars.
In other business, the board set November 24th at 5:00 p.m. as the date and time for a work session to look at potential budget cuts. The district needs to reduce its budget by two and-a-half percent under the latest round of reductions ordered by the state. Grieves had originally planned to dip into the district’s cash reserves, but he’s concerned about putting too much of a drain on the reserves in light of even more cuts likely to come in the future.
