School board approves facilities Master Plan

by Krystal Fowler Associate Editor

The Albia School Board heard a presentation on the facilities Master Plan for the district during their November meeting before approving it.

They heard from superintendent Richard Montgomery, Laura Peterson from Invision Architecture and Pete Perez from Boyd Jones as well as Kristin Mick and Ryan Ammons as members of the task force. that helped shape the plan.

Superintendent Montgomery stated that a lot of work had been done over the past year to help develop a master plan to present to the board.

The process began after the community failed to support a PPEL levy. The board and district decided to take a step back to evaluate their plans and to get more input from more community members about what they wanted the future of the district to look like.

“The Master Plan is intended to be fluid,,” said Perez. “It’s intended to be a live working document as you move through several years of facility improvements at the various locations.

Perez said that the district completed a facility assessment around 2017 and that spurred some improvements in the district. It also gave the district some priorities to focus on if they could get funding in place.

Perez said that through the community engagement process the district has been going through they identified three main things the community was interested in. They were, first, what is the district currently dealing with? Where are the needs in the current facilities? Second, what happens in the future? What is the plan to implement improvements? And the third thing was the need to communicate the plan and how it would be implemented and how it might change in the future.

Perez said that the board and the community also need to understand that there are many variables that can impact the plan, such as enrollment, inflation, construction costs and changes in legislation at the state level.

Perez said the plan will help the district build a vision for the long-range future and ensure the district is maintaining its facilities as needed, and completing improvements to meet the needs of students today and in the future.

Peterson then walked the board through the timeline of meetings that helped to develop the Master Plan

“One of the critical things that we talked about coming out of last year’s listening sessions was this needed to be a community driven process,” said Peterson.

A task force was formed with community members and staff to take in the ideas obtained from the initial focus groups to help formulate the Master Plan.

Kristin Mick also talked to the board about the task force’s process.

“We had a lot of honest and open discussion,” said Mick. “And of course we didn’t all agree. In the end it was a great group to work with and I know I speak for everybody when I say we hope that we helped you guys lead to the right Master Plan for our school and for our community.”

Peterson said that the task force looked at things like data, enrollment, current facilities, the district’s current maintenance plan and more.

“We looked at big and crazy ideas to small fixes and tried to lay everything out,” said Peterson.

Peterson said then the task force laid out the top priorities they had identified.

They looked at what projects could be completed based on what possible funding the district would have available.

The task force also identified continuing priority maintenance, addressing security needs at the 7-12 building, implementing an improvement cycle and eliminating reliance on external facilities as priorities.

Peterson said the task force spent a long time discussing a long-term plan for Lincoln Center and the possibility of consolidating facilities to be more efficient.

Peterson then walked the board through what the next 10 years would look like with the district’s current funding sources.

The district currently has access to SAVE, the one cent state sales tax, and a board approved PPEL for facility improvements.

This level of funding lets the district make their annual bond payment, as well as update transportation and technology on a rotation and provides for annual maintenance projects like sidewalk repair, field maintenance and parking lot repairs.

Superintendent Montgomery said the district receives about $1.2 million per year from SAVE. About $820,000 per year is committed to payments for improvements that have already been made to various district buildings including Grant, Kendall, the bus barn and the MAC building. The remaining SAVE money and board approved PPEL is used to make technology and transportation purchases each year on a rotating basis as well as other maintenance needs.

There is not enough funding at this time to complete other projects like safety and security updates, furniture replacement or any major projects.

Peterson said the task force looked at many options including consolidating buildings, keeping the same amount of buildings and maintaining them, adding on to buildings and more before landing on the plan being presented to the board.

The Plan does show a major need for a voter-approved PPEL in order to sustain District facilities and equipment and provides a long-term vision for the Lincoln Center that could include general obligation bonding.

Peterson said the Master Plan would ask for a voter-approved PPEL that would allow the district to have an improvement cycle for furniture and finishes in all their facilities. It would also allow the district to improve security at the 7-12 building and widen the competition football field for use by multiple activities which would include moving the bleachers. The district could also acquire the Monroe County Sports Complex and make it ADA compliant.

The 10-year vision also includes the renovation and expansion of the Lincoln Center into a 2-6 grade facility, moving the Central Office to the Mick Center, having all grades 7-12 in one building, changing Grant to an early learning center with grades PK-1 and selling the Kendall Center.

Peterson said Lincoln Center had some of the biggest long-term needs.

“We looked at anything from replacing it, moving it, renovating, adding on to it, really looked at all those options with cost parameters with the task force,” said Peterson.

This led the task force to recommend a phased replacement of Lincoln beginning with a classroom addition on the building.

The task force felt this plan would create a more centralized system and would allow the district to be more efficient with staff and resources. They felt this long-range plan would meet the student and community needs moving into the future.

The renovation and expansion would require a general obligation bond and would be done in phases that could begin in 5-10 years if the community approves.

Peterson said the plan then prioritized the projects that would need to be completed first, like security updates and roof replacements, versus things like the Lincoln Center renovation or replacement which would be several years into the future.

Perez said that items like purchasing and improving the Monroe County Sports Complex, improvements to the football field facilities and Phase 1 of the Lincoln Center project would require a voter approved PPEL with the Lincoln Center replacement needing a general obligation bond approved by voters.

“This is not a linear process,” said Perez.

Perez said the district will also have to keep in mind changing interest rates and costs as well as things like legislative changes. Perez pointed out that recent legislative changes now restrict districts to holding one bond vote per year which can greatly effect their ability to move forward on improvement projects if a vote fails to pass, possibly delaying projects for years. Perez said that construction costs are estimated to rise four to six percent annually as well.

Ryan Ammons also spoke to the board about the task force’s thought process.

He said the task force really focused on long term planning and sustainability for the district as well as the best way to spend the district’s money on facility maintenance and improvements. He said it was important to make sure the district communicates the long-range plan and why they are doing things.

The board then had the opportunity to ask questions about the plan.

By approving the plan, it would not mean that any projects would be set in stone, such as the purchase of the sports complex, changes to the football field or building a new Lincoln Center, as all are dependent on funding sources and are general plans at this point. Those plans would need to be finalized at a later date to move forward. The plan will also be updated as things change.

Superintendent Montgomery also stated that looking back he was somewhat grateful that the last PPEL vote did not pass as it brought the district to completing this Master Plan process which has brought up many new ideas about how the district can be configured in the future.

The board then voted to approve the Master Plan with all voting yes. Bord memebr Roger George was absent.

The next steps in the process would be to develop a web page to centralize information and communicate progress about the plan and any projects under consideration and to consider a future voter-approved PPEL vote.