The next Citizens Action meeting will be in November 2018. Date and location TBD at this time.
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Background Information on Referendum
Superintendent Tim Culver came to Oak Creek as the new superintendent from Sun Prairie School District which was one of the most indebted School Districts in WI.
Nexus Solutions was hired as the design firm to build and promote the referendum. Nexus has paid for fliers, used school mailers and websites to promote the 60 million dollar referendum which they will oversee. The commission for this contract will be 9 million dollars or more.
Comprehensive Plan
The Comprehensive Plan was initiated about 10 years ago to address the future needs of the School District. 5 years ago, the decision was made to construct Forest Ridge elementary and the 9th grade center. This was done because it was cost prohibitive to build additions on all of the older elementary schools. This was the advice of Voss Jorgenson School District Consultants. Nexus is now presenting a variation of the rejected plan.
Actual Plan Considerations
1. Grade schools are not housing any more students than they were 10 years ago. The enrollment at this time is static.
2. Gymnasiums seem to be a priority while most classroom upgrades remain unaddressed.
3. The existing gymnasiums are smaller on our older schools but adequate for the size of the schools.
4. High School upgrades include a Preforming Arts Center, this option has community support and should stand on its own merits. We should not consider all projects within a single referendum question.
5. Technical Education is growing. The School District should be mindful as to how much funding is dedicated. High schools should be used to prep students for the next step in their education toward technical college. Technical education plans for the High School include numerous changes and the addition of classes. This will also burden the system with additional cost considerations for staffing and operating costs.
6. Sports complex facility complete with astro turf. Our current facilities are owned and operated by the City of Oak Creek. The School District trades usage of our school facilities for equal use of the City’s sports facilities. Construction of a new baseball facility shifts all of the costs to the School District in addition to the millions for dollars to build it.
In November 2017 the School District had 27 million dollars of deferred maintenance, according to Superintendent Culver. At that time 17 million was borrowed to address these supposed issues. The majority of funds reserved for deferred maintenance cost is going for energy efficiency upgrades. The deferred maintenance issue still must be addressed. This is not part of the 60 million dollar referendum.
The current School debt is at 104 million dollars. With the added cost to referendum this will in crease the debt total to over 200 million. The true cost of the 60 million dollar referendum will be over 90 million. The added expense is incurred through interest to be paid through the course of the 20 year loan.
City costs for development of this property is unknown at this time. The City has been asked to use Tax Incremental Finance Authority to develop this site. These costs could exceed 20 million dollars. Is this the best use of City finances? Was there a site analysis done to determine if this was the appropriate location in Oak Creek for such a large development?
The City of Oak Creek has the 7th highest debt out of 69 metro communities. As of July 2018 the City’s debt stands at 97.3 million. Additional borrowing has occurred for addition Tax Incremental Financing Districts since this information was published by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.