If voters give their blessing this fall to a $49 million school bond issue, USD 257 will pay about $521,000 to acquire about 95 acres of land for the project.
School board members approved last week a contract to purchase the land sandwiched around the Prairie Spirit Trail, just north of Oregon Road on the north edge of Iola.
“We’re thrilled to get the land at that price,” Superintendent of Schools Jack Koehn told the Register.
Board members voted, 4-0, on a $2,500 option to buy the land from David and Joyce Austin of Parsons at a special meeting July 29.
Under terms of the contract, the district will pay about $7,500 per acre for 18.59 acres west of the trail — about $139,000 — for the elementary school, and $5,000 per acre for 76.33 acres — another $381,000 — on which the high school would be built.
Local voters must approve a pair of referendums to green-light construction of a new elementary and high school.
The first is a general obligation bond that would increase property taxes about 17 mills, although that number is mitigated by a significant drop for this year’s property tax levy, prompted by Supreme Court-mandated legislation to make education funding more equitable across the state. That means property owners would pay about 61.5 mills starting next year compared to the 52.37 mills they paid in 2013-14.
The other local portion of the funding — a half-cent sales tax for the City of Iola — also must be approved by voters. The half-cent bump would push Iola’s sales tax rate to 8.9 percent.
Part of the reason the district is eager to push the bond issue to a vote this year is because of a provision in state law that would fund more than half of the $49 million, 51 percent, from the state.
“If we don’t have that 51 percent, we’re sunk,” School Board President Tony Leavitt told Iola City Council members last week.
If the bond issue fails in November, ownership will remain with the Austins, and they will retain the $2,500 option money.
BOE: ÂLand for schools would cost $521,000
