District 58 Begins Talks on Addressing Capital Needs

Officials in  have begun discussing how it will fund its most pressing capital needs, which could cost an estimated $39 million in years to come.

Last year, District 58 hired consultant Wight and Co. to conduct a comprehensive assessment of the district’s 13 schools, as well as the and . The assessment, according to district officials, was the first step in creating a long-term facilities plan.

Wight and Co. examined each facility to investigate and report on the physical condition of the building and the site components, and benchmarked the performance characteristics of each facility against recognized current educational practices.

Click here to view the full D58 facilities assessment.

The final assessments were presented to the board this past spring. The report identified facility needs, recommended construction projects and improvement options for the district’s operational buildings, and offered conceptual budget costs. The total estimated cost to address all of the firm’s recommendations would be approximately $39 million, according to the report.

That number, the consultant said, is very low considering the size of District 58. However, the age of each the district's facilities, which ranges from 42 to 84 years old, has created pressing needs, many of which must be addressed in the near future in order to keep the buildings in line with current education standards.

In the report, Wight and Co. stated that  “balancing the cost of maintaining building infrastructure components with improving the quality of the educational environment is a difficult challenge that school districts face on a continual basis.”

"The complexity of maximizing the performance of a school building and optimizing taxpayer dollars is compounded by the facility age, fluctuating fuel costs, volatile economic conditions and evolving instructional trends, the latter of which has recently under-gone a dramatic paradigm shift," the consultant said.

During a budget workshop held Aug. 27, the District 58 school board held a discussion on several potential funding options to continue addressing the district’s capital needs: issuing bonds, or asking voters to raise taxes via referendum.

Over the past four years, the district has addressed the majority of its significant roofing needs by using $6 million from existing fund balances and $6 million from Life Safety bond proceeds, according to District 58 Controller Jim Popernik.

Other pressing significant Life Safety projects—including pavement repairs, curtainwall replacements and plumbing replacements—were addressed through an additional $4 million in Life Safety bond proceeds over the past three years.

The remaining facility needs outlined by Wight and Co. are too great to be addressed through normal operating revenue, Popernik said.

"If we want to address everything that's in the master plan, we're going to have to come up with somewhere between $20 million and $30 million," he said.

According to Popernik, addressing the entire $39 million in recommended projects would, without a doubt, create the need for a referendum.

One alternative, he said, would be to use a bonding plan to address the most pressing facilities needs, which would likely cost between $4 milion and $16 million. 

Popernik presented a facilities plan that would address several areas of concern for about $8-10 million. Projects would include district-wide carpet replacement ($1.8 million), asphalt repair ($700,000), upgrades to the middle school science and home economics labs ($1 million), and Life Safety and HVAC upgrades ($2 million).

Another $1 million would address "severe space pressures" at and by creating two new classrooms in each of the schools, Popernik said. 

Lester and Pierce Downer have a classroom areas per student of 41 square feet and 38 square feet, respectively. The area per student at the other 11 schools ranges from 45 square feet () to 74 square feet ().

The consensus of the board was that additional borrowing on a limited basis, plus using available fund balances, would allow the district to be fiscally responsible while tackling its most pressing issues, which will be determined in partnership with the community.

What capital improvements would you like to see in District 58? Tell us in the comments below.

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