Voters approve $1M bond for Wheaton Schools
April 16, 2016
Charlea Estes
Wheaton School District voters passed a $1 million bond issue in yesterday’s election. Just Barry County voters passed the initiative with a 75 percent yes vote, 165 to 55.
The funds will be used to build a FEMA shelter on campus which will be utilizable by both the students and community members.
Wheaton Schools Superintendent Dr. Lance Massey said, “We are combining bond issue funds with FEMA dollars to build a multipurpose community safe room for both our students and the community.”
Aside from being a storm shelter, the district plans to use additional funds to make the building more multipurpose for students. The FEMA building will host events like music programs, speech and drama and K-12 physical education classes.
The overall project is right around $2.06 million with $1.54 million coming from FEMA grant funding and $516,000 coming from the bond issue passed by voters. The district plans to use the additional $484,000 to make upgrades to the building to make it more useful to the district and community.
Upgrades will include making the doors automatically sync and unlock when the storm sirens go off. Massey said, “We want to make it automatically unlock to make sure that it’s available and we don’t have to have someone to get up here to get it open and consider their travel time.
“The only question we’ve got is to make sure that our system and the city system is compatible when the sirens go off.
“That’s one of the things our architect has started looking into because we’ve told him that is a priority.
It’ll be a real community combination of us working with the city.”
As far as a time frame, there is no set answer, but they hope to start the project in the spring. Massey stated, “At this point, we are awaiting approval of FEMA funding. FEMA has informed us that their next release of funds will be in the late August time frame. We’re hoping to be a part of that round of funding, if not, they’ll be another round of funding later in the late fall or early winter. It’s just a waiting game to receive those FEMA dollars and grant approval and then we’ll move forward with that project.”
Once complete, the building will be approximately 8,500 square feet and be able to safely house 1,280 people in the case of an emergency.
The building will be constructed on campus between the high school and elementary buildings.
Massey added, “It’ll be easy access to the community and all students K through 12. I think that’s one of the selling points that helped us. Our folks wanted it on campus and easy access for everybody. We didn’t build it on some remote place on campus that would make it difficult to get to.”
Charlea Estes
Wheaton School District voters passed a $1 million bond issue in yesterday’s election. Just Barry County voters passed the initiative with a 75 percent yes vote, 165 to 55.
The funds will be used to build a FEMA shelter on campus which will be utilizable by both the students and community members.
Wheaton Schools Superintendent Dr. Lance Massey said, “We are combining bond issue funds with FEMA dollars to build a multipurpose community safe room for both our students and the community.”
Aside from being a storm shelter, the district plans to use additional funds to make the building more multipurpose for students. The FEMA building will host events like music programs, speech and drama and K-12 physical education classes.
The overall project is right around $2.06 million with $1.54 million coming from FEMA grant funding and $516,000 coming from the bond issue passed by voters. The district plans to use the additional $484,000 to make upgrades to the building to make it more useful to the district and community.
Upgrades will include making the doors automatically sync and unlock when the storm sirens go off. Massey said, “We want to make it automatically unlock to make sure that it’s available and we don’t have to have someone to get up here to get it open and consider their travel time.
“The only question we’ve got is to make sure that our system and the city system is compatible when the sirens go off.
“That’s one of the things our architect has started looking into because we’ve told him that is a priority.
It’ll be a real community combination of us working with the city.”
As far as a time frame, there is no set answer, but they hope to start the project in the spring. Massey stated, “At this point, we are awaiting approval of FEMA funding. FEMA has informed us that their next release of funds will be in the late August time frame. We’re hoping to be a part of that round of funding, if not, they’ll be another round of funding later in the late fall or early winter. It’s just a waiting game to receive those FEMA dollars and grant approval and then we’ll move forward with that project.”
Once complete, the building will be approximately 8,500 square feet and be able to safely house 1,280 people in the case of an emergency.
The building will be constructed on campus between the high school and elementary buildings.
Massey added, “It’ll be easy access to the community and all students K through 12. I think that’s one of the selling points that helped us. Our folks wanted it on campus and easy access for everybody. We didn’t build it on some remote place on campus that would make it difficult to get to.”