BROKEN BOW – The 3rd Broken Bow Public Schools community input meeting at the Tumbleweed Café Monday morning was an attempt at a wake-up call for the community.
At 6:30 a.m. over breakfast, it seemed to the small crowd gathered as though renovations to the school were inevitable, and that the prices were only going up.
Broken Bow School Board member Tim Chancellor said that no matter what, or how, money will have to be spent on school facilities one way or another.
“We’ve got a lot of expensive ‘band-aids’ we’re going to have to spend money on which aren’t optional. We can’t have gas valves that don’t close in the science rooms, or leaking roofs. We’re going to be spending probably millions of dollars on ‘band-aids’ on a structure that, somewhere down the road, isn’t going to be able to support what’s necessary.”
The difficulty going forward seems to be a sort of paralysis; there are simply too many things to be done at once and too many ways to go about doing them.
The whole project feels something like trying to eat a cheeseburger the size of a football; Superintendent Darren Tobey explains.
“Which area do you tackle first? If you want to move those science classrooms, then we need to do something with CTE. If you don’t want to move the classrooms, we could renovate them. How much HVAC do we do? How much roof repair on the middle school if maybe in 2 years we think about building a new one?”
Broken Bow resident Eric Tharp, having cross-examined the 2021 renovation proposal with the updated designs which would combine gym and theater spaces, worried that there could be a human cost to the $10 million saved on the consolidated spaces.
“I’m afraid if we don’t improve the fine arts right now, that can’s going to get kicked down the road, and never going to happen. For a lot of kids, fine arts are their ‘football,’ their ‘wrestling,’ and the reason they get up in the morning. We don’t want to cut that sector of the children out.”
Again, the issue of funding came up; according to the district, it doesn’t appear as though any feasible financial solution is available other than a bond, the dreaded 4-letter word. While there are various grants for renovations, many of those target specific, smaller projects, which, given the school’s current headaches, would be like treating a sick elephant with a pedicure.
There is a possibility of an increase in state funding should the legislative scales tip a little westward, which could help the cause. Over the past few years, Broken Bow has seen its assistance from Lincoln dwindle from $2.7 million to roughly $100,000.
Part of the presumed pushback against the bond comes from the perceived unfair financial burden it places on the district’s agricultural producers. However, with the recent passing of LB 2, the legislature has attempted to alleviate that for farmers and ranchers statewide when it comes to school bond tax levies. Board member Chancellor explained.
“Now that LB 2 has passed, all agricultural land is valued at 70%, and commercial and residential is valued at 100%.”
Chancellor went on to point out that even when the district ran the bond 18 months ago, the agricultural producers weren’t overly taxed when compared with their counterparts.
“Our research the last time we ran the bond showed that 52% of the tax load was on the residential and commercial areas; agriculture was 48%.”
The complaints about tax burdens, unfortunately for the district and administration, only add to the mountain of indecision; nobody who had voted down the previous bond chose to speak. However, the school district has scheduled another meeting for Wednesday, May 10 at 5:30 p.m. at the Fox Theater in Broken Bow.
