After a town hall meeting Monday night, the Aromas-San Juan
Unified School District is ready to consider floating a $13 million
to 28 million bond for school improvements at a meeting next
month.
After a town hall meeting Monday night, the Aromas-San Juan Unified School District is ready to consider floating a $13 million to 28 million bond for school improvements at a meeting next month.
The bond would be put to voters at a general election in June and could be for up to $28 million, said Jackie Muñoz, district superintendent. Muñoz has said the funds would go toward a second construction phase to improve district schools, including projects such as replacing portable buildings with permanent classrooms at Aromas School and upgrading kitchen facilities there and at San Juan School.
The board on Feb. 6 will consider putting the bond issue before voters.
Muñoz called Monday night’s meeting positive. The meeting – which Muñoz said about 35 residents and teachers attended – was at Aromas School, the second of two such town hall-style discussions on the proposed bond.
“We had a teacher there who works in one of the portables that’s leaking and she was very articulate about how the district has maintained those buildings, and they continue to be an issue,” Muñoz said.
The superintendent said she’ll recommend that the board ask voters to approve a bond measure for $18.3 million.
But Paul Goodman, who sat on the citizens oversight committee for a bond passed in 2003, said the bond will be a tough sell to voters.
The Aromas resident said the district should focus on its budget – which is projected to be $900,000 in the red as of June 30.
“If the district’s going broke, and at the same time you want to raise our taxes for other things, it doesn’t go hand in hand,” Goodman said.
Goodman also said the last school bond funded a new gymnasium for Aromas School – a project he believes drove the support of taxpayers. He suggested the new bond should fund a football program for Anzar High School, along with a new field.
Muñoz said other projects would have to suffer.
“If we put a big-ticket item on, then we’d have to push another project off the list,” Muñoz said.
