Referendum date changed by school board

March 11 referendum now set for Sept. 30.

By:Vanessa S. Holt
   CHESTERFIELD — The $15.1 million bond referendum for a new elementary school originally scheduled for March 11 will be rescheduled for Sept. 30, school officials said Wednesday.
   Tuesday night the school board unanimously voted to rescind a resolution that was passed in November 2002 authorizing the referendum.
   Last week, officials said they were considering the postponement because the board will not find out until April whether additional funding is available from the state.
   The Chesterfield Township Committee is looking for additional funding sources, including grants, for the new school, said Beverly Mills, the school board’s president.
   The Township Committee is seeking funding for 23 acres at the proposed 27.5-acre school site from the state Department of Environmental Protection’s Green Acres program.
   If approved by Green Acres, athletic fields at the site would be usable by the township at-large when not in use by the school district during the day.
   The Green Acres program could provide funding for up to 50 percent of the cost of the fields.
   In December, when the committee voted to apply to Green Acres, Committeeman Larry Durr said the cost of establishing fields could be as much as $1.5 million.
   The total cost of the new school construction and renovations to the existing school are expected to be $18.7 million, of which $3.595 million will be provided by the state.
   The township’s share would be a little over $15.1 million under the plan proposed to go before voters in March, but that number could decrease if Green Acres funding is provided, said school officials at a public information session on Jan. 16.
   About 50 people attended last week’s public information session in the school library. Architect Dave Fraytak and Chief School Administrator Edward Gibson described the proposal to residents and answered questions about the tax impact on residents and the need for a new school.
   "There’s no question there’s a train coming down the mountain with hundreds and hundreds of children on it in the future," Dr. Gibson told the crowd gathered in the library.
   If the bond referendum is approved by voters in September, the new school would be able to open in September of 2006.
   District officials anticipate that a new school will be needed within the next five years because of a planned village center in the township that may include 1,270 houses by 2012, based on developers’ projections gathered by Township Planner Phillip Caton, said Dr. Gibson.
   The enrollment at the current school is approximately 270 students, but demographic projections indicate that the district could have a total of 809 students in 2007, and a total of 1,270 students by 2012 if each new house in the township produces one child, Dr. Gibson told residents at the meeting.
   The estimated five-year average yearly tax increase for a house assessed at $210,000 would be $395, said school officials. The first year, the average tax impact would be $210, climbing to $516 in the third year and falling to $469 by the fifth year. Those figures were based on a March referendum date.
   "We did everything possible to make the numbers exacting," said Dr. Gibson. "It’s impossible to predict what houses will be worth and the growth rate."
   The new school would be located on 27.5 acres in the receiving area of the township, on what is now known as the Wilkinson farm. The Wilkinson family breeds horses on a total of 113 acres.
   When the board set the referendum date in November 2002, Doris Wilkinson said the family would have to relocate, but was not sure it would be able to sell the property until it knew for certain whether a school would be built there.
   The proposed school is designed to initially serve grades 3-6 and would eventually include grades 2-6 in the second and final phase of the project.
   The current school building on Bordentown-Chesterfield Road would shift to grades K-2 at first and would eventually serve K-1, including pre-kindergarten and special education rooms, said district officials.
   If the referendum is not approved, the school would have to eliminate several programs, develop larger class sizes and eventually move into trailers, or mobile classrooms, said Dr. Gibson in response to several questions at the Jan. 16 meeting.
   If that were to happen, officials said as many as nine or 10 trailers could be needed by the 2005-2006 school year, with each trailer costing between $85,000 and $100,000.
   State funding is not available for temporary facilities such as mobile classrooms, and trailers can be used only on a temporary six-month basis, according to information in a packet distributed at the meeting.
   One woman, who did not identify herself, noted that on her street, 20 houses had produced only about six children. Another resident estimated 75 children on a street with 49 houses.
   Mr. Fraytak said however the growth was distributed, it would happen.
   "However quickly the ‘train’ gets to the station, it will get there," he said.