Board passes proposed budget

After an hour long public hearing attended by nearly 200 people, Red Oak’s school board approved its 2015-16 budget which includes a controversial $2.11 debt service levy.

With its 5-0 vote, the board set the overall levy at $15.69, which also allows the district to fund phase one of the Tigervision construction project.

Several people spoke at the hearing with comments relating to not only the levy, but the building project as well.

The debt service levy was approved by voters in 1999 to pay for the construction of Inman Primary. However, during the campaign to pass that bond, voters were promised the school would be paid for through sales tax dollars and not through an increase in property taxes.

That debt service levy though was added to the 2014-15 budget to allow the district to use those sales tax dollars for part of the Tigervision building project. Phase one of that project, with a price tag of $13 million, will allow the district to relocate the middle school to the existing high school campus. The high school would then be housed in a new building constructed on that same campus.

Phase two of the Tigervision project calls for the relocation of Washington Intermediate and Webster preschool to new buildings at the Inman Primary campus, allowing the district to reduce the number of existing campuses from five to two.

Board member Dr. Warren Hayes asked about removing the feasibility of removing the debt service levy, but was told doing so would likely jeopardize the building project.

Hayes and Paul Griffen voted against starting phase one of the Tigervision project during a public meeting in December, but joined the board in the unanimous vote Monday in passing the budget.

A more detailed story from the meeting will appear in the April 21 Red Oak Express.