Arthur School Board holds lengthy meeting to discuss options following failed referendum for building improvements

By Editor | December 3, 2024 |

During the November meeting of the Arthur School Board, a very lengthy discussion took place regarding the second failed referendum on the recent November ballot.

Mitch Fleming and David McGrath both addressed the Board during the public comment portion of the meeting.

Fleming from Atwood spoke first and stated, “I just want to encourage everybody. I think when we started this process because of some of the historical background, everybody was facing an uphill battle from the very beginning. Several of you have probably asked yourselves the question, how did this time around, how did it not pass? And you’ve probably come up with your own answers. I’ve done the same.”

Fleming commented, “Through all of the work that the Board did and the committee did, we had a net gain of 47.4 points. That’s an absolutely insane massive gain, especially in this economic climate that we’re in.”

He went on to say, “There’s a drastic step I think that we could take and there’s several smaller minor steps I think that maybe we could look at or things to consider moving forward. I want to be careful how I say this, but I think you could role out the exact same referendum on a spring ballot, and I think that it would pass. I think your yes voters are going to show up again to support this. I think a lot of people either showed up to vote for Kamala or President-elect Trump, and when they were there, they voted no for higher taxes. So, I’m not advocating or saying roll this exact same thing out, but I think a different voter turnout, a difference of voters could probably play in your favor come spring.”

McGrath spoke representing the “Vote Yes” committee. He thanked everyone who gave up their time to engage and interact with communities, those that shared input on the referendum plan, and for the support improving our schools, ensuring a future for our students, staff and communities.

He added, “Although no plan is ever perfect, we as a committee believe that the current building plan, which has been developed with the help of the community is solid and addresses the true needs of the students and staff. After much discussion with others in the community, we’re in agreement that it would be hard to remove anything from the plan without a cascade effect that would hinder the educational opportunities and environment while also hindering the draw for future teachers and administrators to commit to careers at ALAH High School.”

“We believe we cannot hesitate on this decision as we the committee know, it’s important to be out in the communities as soon as possible, spreading the word why it’s important to everyone. We must be proactive sooner than later while we still have the support of the 1500 yes votes and to also make sure all community members of ALAH are more informed than they were in November. We feel many voters were still uninformed regarding the referendum despite all the efforts put in by this committee and the district,” McGrath stated.

He concluded, “We are asking the Board to put it back on the ballot and give this committee and many others more time to inform the public about the details and importance of the plan. If we do not act quick and fail to put it on the ballot in April due to possible administration and Board member changes, we really believe we’re looking at four to six years before another referendum sees the ballot, the school and its students and staff cannot wait another four to six years. There is a large number of people that are ready and willing to do what is needed to get done, to ensure the future of our communities and school for years to come.”

Superintendent Cheek said, “Well we’ve been talking about the referendum. I think the vote yes committee said it best- We definitely closed the gap, no doubt about it. A lot closer than 2022 for various reasons probably. The no vote does not make the needs go away.

He addressed three referendum options with the first one being in April of 2025 followed by March and November of 2026 as the other two. Cheek feels all three probably pose some pros and cons and that need to be considered moving forward. He referenced the vote yes committee’s plan in presenting a similar if not identical plan as he had not heard on a wide scale level issues with the plan this time.

“Even though I felt like we did try to include in both processes as much as we can and as much as people are willing to participate in process, I think we did get a lot of information, and the plans were developed from that process from the communities. I have not heard a significant amount of concern related to the plan itself. What I have heard on occasion and more consistently is why don’t we build a new building? Why don’t we quit putting a Band-Aid on this building and just build a new building,” Cheek stated.

There are other options that are out there Cheek told the Board with one being a health life safety bond replacement. That process involves ISBE, ROE, and your architect. Basically, an analysis of the building will be done and then that information is presented to ISBE in forms of replacing the building. If the plan is approved and ISBE deems that this building falls underneath those qualifications, then you have the opportunity to do a replacement which means that you can replace essentially the entire building, what they deem to be falling within that scope. You can replace but you cannot add additional square footage. For example, a gym could not be added into that process.

Cheek said, “It’s only what they deem to be replaceable, you can’t replace an 82,000 square foot building with 110,000 square foot building for example. Again, challenges and concerns with that as well as you move forward, but it’s an option.”

School Board member Brock Casteel asked, “Under that option the money just doesn’t come from the state. Cheek replied oh no.

Casteel then asked, “It only gives us the ability to levy?”.

Cheek responded, “Yes, it gives us the ability to levy, you’re still issuing bonds. It’s not a state grant. The grants that are available have been applied for them, let me be clear on that.”

Board member Kristie Mechling asked, “Do you know Shannon, have you heard how long it takes for the state to make that assessment? Is it such that it gets wrapped up in bureaucratic red tape or whatever and it’s like two years from now we’ll find out if approved?

“I think it’s relatively quick. When you’re speaking about the state of Illinois, relatively quick would be, I would anticipate having an answer by the end of the school year. And to me that’s pretty quick when you’re talking about the state, so turnaround time is relatively quick, Cheek answered.

She went on to ask if you can you do a parallel path with this where you apply for that but then have a plan to put something on your referendum? Or is it that once you submit for that there’s no putting something on the ballot?

“No, you can do it parallel. The problem that has to be considered with that approach is whatever you put on the ballot in April, if it passes, that has to be done. That’s what talked about. So, you can do this, but they need to look different, Cheek stated.

Board member Justin Wierman commented, “So it’d be here’s the plan for the voters to vote on would be a completely different plan of what we would submit to ISBE.”

Cheek responded, “It’d be a tough thing to bounce. You would have a lot of confusion.”

“To me, if you go the health life safety route, you essentially lose control. You are going to be locked into what that audit says of this building. There’s no adding on unless there’s a referendum. I think that’s one of those things, once you allow someone in to say this is good or this is not, then once you have that audit, you have that audit,” Casteel stated.

Cheek said the current building is approximately 82,000 square foot and the plan they put forth was going to be a total of again, we’re working in approximations here, about 106,000 to 110,000 square foot, so a 20,000+ foot addition.

Wierman asked, “Is this the process that Pana did there a few years ago?”

“Yes, they went through a grade school scenario where I think, I don’t know exactly, but I think they closed a couple and replaced them with one. It can be the whole building or it can be part of the building. In this particular case, my recommendation would be the entire building minus the new gym and that foyer area,” Cheek replied.

Mechling asked, “What does that take, is that just a vote?”

“To go through that process? We need to make a decision that that’s the process to go through and then the ball gets rolling. You basically have your architects involved, you have the ROE at some point would be brought into the conversation and then the presentation would be presented to ISBE and then they would make the determination of whether this building is in need of replacement. And it’s not always just based on condition. It’s sometimes based on functionality as well. And I think we have determined that the functionality of this building it does not fit the current students we have, Cheek answered.

Board member Monica Green asked, “It’s not condemning the building?

To which Cheek replied, “It’s determining the functionality of the building is no longer adequate.”

Suzi Berkich, Board member commented, “I was going back to our notes. Ryan and I did the walkthrough when we first started this in 2019, I think it was October or November of 2019. And then the group of Ryan and I and administrators and Damien sat down, and we had that rubric with the QLEO study. And the high school I believe was at a 37 out of 100 of an educational adequacy with 50 or below means you need significant update, upgrade or replacement. So, we were at 37 at 2019, so things haven’t gotten any better.”

Cheek told the Board, “I think all options need to be considered as we move forward. The need has not gone away, and I feel like we have spent a significant amount of time, energy, effort, and have had open arms to welcoming opinions and welcoming feedback and I would say this second go around, Mitch, you mentioned the word transparency. I’m not sure how much more transparent it can be. That’s where I’m at and those needs have not changed.”

Mechling feels in Lovington a lot of the people that were very negative and no’s the first time round came around this time and she’s not sure that there’s many more no’s to convert to yeses in an April referendum. She is also concerned that because it’s not a presidential election it may be difficult to get more people to actually come out and vote because of past numbers. She thinks it would be a big gamble whereas in her opinion if they have all of the factual information, the drawings the pictures, the assessments that they’ve done, and ISBE looks at this, even if it’s going to be a few months or by the end of the school year, that’s very promising.

Green asked, “What would be the timeline to get it in on the ballot?”

“We need to have a decision in December about the route we want to go and the very latest that we can approve language to go on the ballot is January 12 or 13. We’ll have to have a special meeting in January. But I personally think that we need to have some course of action in December of which direction we’re going to head.” Cheek said

Green asked, “So we only have so much borrowing power in the district, what if the replacement comes back more than that?

In response to her question Cheek replied that $40 million was their bonding power since they’ve had an increase in EAV but to replace this building the footprint will not come back more than that. He added that he didn’t think it would be responsible for him to recommend maxing that bond out.

Wierman asked Shannon to go back to the numbers. He stated, “I’m sorry the voter numbers, red flag for me or cause for concern is this referendum would have passed had it not been for the communities of Atwood and Hammond. If you look at where the failure came from- and the question is something I think we all have got to say is can we get it passed in those communities? You’ve got the legacy bond there that those communities are still dealing with even though we tried to massage the bond to make it happen. There are people now posting and offering all kinds of ideas and opinions and support, but were nowhere to be publicly supportive of it during in those communities. So, what’s going to change now? Do we feel like that we can focus on those two communities and get it passed is probably where I would stand to look at this because that’s the anchor in the whole situation from my eyes looking at it. I think we’ve got three different options we can do, but I think we need to get a lot more information on those.

Board member Ryan Nettles commented it would be interesting to see if somebody could put together a number in comparison of tearing down the 82,000 square feet building verses what the build back construction price would be between what you were going to do around the 106,000 square footage. He added the $25 million should be a considerably different number than that.

“Take out of the mix instead of doing a remodel job–maybe this is the route we could go down. Can we make 82,00 square feet more functional?” Nettles asked.

Wierman commented that the 82,000 is actually better for us in the long run than what the 100,000+ we were doing.

“If you were to do something of that nature, you would see it on one level and the functionality of the building would be making the building more functional. In the current blueprint and in the plan, we had that was going to happen, it was going to be a more functional outline. However, if you’re starting over and you’re able to utilize a one-story building, then the functionality is tenfold better, right? I mean you’re starting fresh and when you look at the third floor of this building it is incredibly inefficient. There’s not much there but stairwells, right? So, you start to gain functionality by level.” Cheek replied.

Nettles responded, “Well that’s what I’m saying. If you rethink outside the box what you were originally going to do with the106,000 or whatever it may be, and you say, okay, you could go down the path with trying to get them to replace all the building, but even if you just said, okay, instead of doing any add-on instead trying to do some of this other stuff, what would it be if you literally took a bulldozer to it, cut it off there and rebuilt fresh. For two years you’re going to have to figure something out to move students to another location for two years in my opinion.”

Cheek made reference that was always a concern in both projects as to how are those students going to be educated for two years. He went on to say in conversations with CORE and BLDD, they felt the plan did not need portables because that’s an added expense. Cheek said he had just read an article that it’s not just the expense of renting the portable, it’s the expense of preparing the site with some estimates coming in around $100,000.00.

“So, we would need to know if this was to be explored, can you still utilize this footprint while you’re attacking the rebuild, even whether it’s through this process or through the original plan and the original plan, what was communicated was yes, you could get by without portables. That would be a question. There’s a lot of questions that I think have to be answered in a short amount of time with this,” Cheek said.

Cheek told the Board, “I think you’re looking at 29.6 million, which is what this cost was for this proposal asking the taxpayers for 24.6. That was a total renovation, plumbing upgrade, HVAC, all of what we’ve talked about or you’re probably looking in the ballpark, and this is ballpark numbers, but I can get secured numbers by December, you’re probably looking at about $25 million to do a replacement. Now you’re also need to keep in mind, you have to understand that that’s a less square footage, $29.6, $24.6 to the voters for 100,000 some thousand square foot or this is rough number so I hate to even throw it out there because it’s not even close to being confirmed, can you do a new footprint for $25 million that’s one level.? You’re losing square footage, but do you gain efficiency? It’s all brand new.”

Green replied, “And this would not go to a vote?”

“You do a health life safety replacement bond, once it’s decided by ISBE that you qualify, there is no vote,” Cheek replied back.

Mechling asked if there was a certain cutoff or if you’re allowed to submit these at a certain time each school year to which Cheek said you can do it whenever, there is no window. She also asked how long it would take to put a package like this together to which Cheek responded, “He’s been in the building several times. I’m speculating on this, but I would anticipate he would have a team come down and go through the building. He’d have multiple members of his team here and I’m assuming there’d be members of ROE involved because there’s layers of approval.”

Mechling then asked, “And then if they came back and hopefully by the end of the school year, we had a decision that they said No, we think your school is okay, then the option would be then to put it on the 2026 ballot.”

Board president Beth Wiley stated she thinks it’s worth Superintendent Cheek gathering more information to have ready by their December 18 meeting. The entire Board was in agreement and each member gave Cheek questions to ask Damien with BLDD Architects regarding suggestions, changes, or any input he might have regarding the possibility of another referendum as well as guidance with the health life safety route.

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