Princeton Public Schools officials next week will explore their options for the facilities bond referendum this fall that could include shrinking the cost from the current $129.6 million.
One possibility is for the district to scale back the referendum by taking some projects out and waiting to have another referendum a few years from now, a scenario the Board of Education will discuss on July 10, Superintendent of Schools Stephen C. Cochrane said.
Another possibility is whether to have a two-question referendum, he said. In that scenario, some of the proposed projects would be broken out and put into separate ballot questions. Voters would need to vote for both questions for the entire package to pass, but they could opt to vote for only the first question, but not the second.
“We want to figure out are there things we can absolutely do now and then potentially are there other items that would make sense as a second question or that we could delay in doing to try and respond to the concern we know some in our community have about the tax impact,” Cochrane said in a July 3 phone interview. “We have not made any changes at all to the referendum at this point.”
Taxes would increase on a home assessed at the Princeton average of $837,074 by $295 beginning in 2020 if the referendum, in its current form, is approved, according to data the district released in June. The 30-year average of the tax impact would be $53.49.
In making its case for the proposal, the district has pointed to a growing enrollment that is expected to get even bigger in upcoming years. By 2027, enrollment is forecast to top 4,500 students in a community that as recently as 2012 had fewer than 3,500 students, data on the district’s website showed.
To make room, officials are looking to build a new school for fifth- and sixth-graders at the site of the Valley Road building, renovate Princeton High School, buy property and improve other schools.
The board is on course to vote on July 17 on whether to have the referendum, which is planned for Oct. 2. Officials could opt to proceed with the referendum, as planned, at the full cost of $129.6 million.
“We always said we would be refining the referendum plan up until the July 17 vote,” board member Dafna Kendal said on July 3. “We’re discussing refinements based on feedback we have received, including the cost of the referendum.”
“There is no question that as a district we have a need to expand capacity K-12, to address security in all our buildings, to improve HVAC and electrical efficiencies district-wide, and to make some athletic improvements,” Cochrane said in a statement issued on July 3.
“The question we are weighing is whether the tax impact of addressing all of those needs at the same time is one the community is ready to shoulder, particularly in light of the recent decision at the federal level which will limit the ability of residents to deduct state and local taxes,” he said.