South Pike school officials on Monday voted to borrow more than $3 million to pay for school construction projects.
The district would repay the money through a special 3-mill tax levy over a period of up to 20 years.
The district’s current debt is rolling off the books, including a 3-mill tax that was in place to pay for the Eva Gordon Elementary School cafeteria.
The new tax levy would replace the 3-mill levy currently in place.
“We’re essentially where we’re at no debt,” said chief of operations Dana Fleming.
The board action comes after two unsuccessful attempts at a bond issue in the past year — both of which voters defeated at the polls.
The $3.25 million would be used for various construction and repair projects — essentially the same ones put to voters.
They include building 15 classrooms at Eva Gordon, replacing the gym floor at Magnolia Elementary School, heating and air conditioning classrooms and the Willie E. Jones Coliseum, and paying for roof projects at Osyka Elementary, Eva Gordon and at the junior high.
The funds also would go toward improving school recreational and athletic property.
With the added classrooms at Eva Gordon, the district would relocate the seventh and eighth grades back on the Eva Gordon campus, where students would have access to a separate gymnasium and football practice facility.
The campus would then serve grades K-8.
A legal notice of the proposal to borrow the funds will be published in the Enterprise-Journal, and the board is set to take final action on the matter at its Aug. 11 meeting.
Also on Monday, trustees unanimously approved an $18.4 million budget for 2008-09 that includes an estimated 2.44-mill decrease.
The millage reduction is the result of increased property tax revenues caused by property reappraisals and because a bond issue passed in 1998 has been paid off, removing 1.87 mills from the district’s tax rolls.
