Royal School Board votes for bond election

ROYAL CITY - The Royal School District board of directors approved a construction bond election at its meeting of Dec. 17.

The election will be officially held on Feb. 12, but voting will occur by mail during several days leading to the 12th.

The District will be seeking approval of the sale of $8.75 million in construction bonds. Approval will bring $4.4 million in state matching funds.

The district would throw in $1.1 million it has saved for a total of $14.25 million in construction.

According to Supt. Rose Search, that amount would allow the district to add four classrooms to the high school and 14 classrooms and a gymnasium to the fifth-grade pod to create a new intermediate school.

If that were accomplished, Royal Schools would change from elementary (K-5, including pod), middle (6-8) and high school (9-12) to K-3 elementary, 4-6 intermediate, 7-8 middle and 9-12 high school.

The bonds would be retired over 15 years at an interest rate of 3.21 percent. The property assessment to accomplish that would be $1.19 per $1,000 of property value. Approval would cost the owner of a $100,000 home $119 per year in added property tax.

District business manager David Andra noted the board meeting was preceded by a facilities committee meeting at which attorney Jim McNeill laid out the rules the district has promised to abide.

"If there is any surplus, from the bonds or state matching, it will be refunded to the taxpayers," Andra said. "It will not be used for add-ons."

Andra noted also that the facilities meeting was attended by 30 Royal High students, as was the previous meeting. Their presence was apparently part of a class assignment, he said.

In other business, the board announced its December Above & Beyond Award winners. They were community member Paul Moore, certificated employee Aaron Smith and certified employee Patrick Hoyt.

Smith is a math teacher at Royal High School. Hoyt works in the district's maintenance department.

Moore is a Boeing Engineering retiree, local small farmer and grandfather of children in the district. He has been an active supporter of several RSD levy and bond campaigns.