The bond voters passed in 2017 called for $16.6 million in improvements to the school. The voter-approved improvements included adding a new administration wing, converting the existing administrative area into classrooms, creating a STEM classroom and more.
Contractors will finalize the design by April, and construction will go from July 2020 through July 2021, officials said.
“We’ve been working on this for quite some time,” Director of Facility Services Paul Miller said.
In addition to green-lighting the original voter-approved improvements, the board on Dec. 16 also approved spending an extra $3.3 million in bond savings for other White Elementary School projects—namely, extending the school’s driveway so it can handle more cars during the pickup and drop-off of students.
“It’s terrible at that campus,” said Paul McLarty, deputy superintendent of business and support services, of the traffic congestion.
Trustee Scott Bowen questioned why the driveway project was not included in the original bond proposal voters approved. He said the district should not necessarily be using savings from bond-related projects to do work that the voters did not originally OK. One alternative, Bowen said, would be to return the savings from the bond projects back to the taxpayers.
McLarty said the bond measure voters approved included language that allows the district to reallocate bond savings to other projects.
“This doesn’t seem like a new problem, and the committee had the option to include this in the original bond proposal and did not,” Bowen said.
Bowen was the sole member to vote against spending the $3.3 million in bond savings on the additional project. However, he and all other board members voted in favor of the overall redesign of White Elementary School.
