Del Val’s fire alarm system was installed in 2006, and due to the system’s age, reliability issues arise more frequently and repairs are growing more expensive. The Board of Education wants to pass a referendum during the midterm elections on Nov. 3 to replace the system.
“A referendum is just the question,” Superintendent Scott McKinney said. “It’s a ballot question that goes to the community members and allows them to ask that permission to raise funds.”
The fire alarm system is frequently requiring repairs. Building and Grounds Supervisor Arnold Stang explained that someone from Johnson Control has been coming to the school about once a week. It costs the school a base of $850 and then by the hour to fix the system or any part that’s down.
“[An] issue that comes with the fire alarm system is that if any part of it goes down, we need to put someone on fire watch,” Board of Education President Frank Simini said. “That means sit a human in a chair wherever the alarms are down and they literally just sit there to look for a fire. They are the fire alarm so they can call 911, that’s extremely expensive because that’s a 24-hour coverage thing.”
If the referendum is passed, Del Val can get $314,840 in state aid that comes from Debt Service Aid. Debt Service Aid is financial assistance provided to school districts or municipalities to cover payments on bonds or capital improvement loans. If it’s not passed, Del Val will not receive any state aid and the school would pay the entire $926,000 from the capital reserve account.
“A capital reserve account is basically a special savings account that the school district is allowed to have specifically for capital improvements,” business administrator Teresa O’Brien said. “There are two ways to generate money into the capital reserve account; one of the ways is to directly, through the tax levy and the second way [is] we look at any excess revenues or balances in the expenditure accounts that haven’t been spent.”
On the ballot, a voter will see that Del Val can receive 40% of the estimated project cost, but the Board believes the school will receive 34% because of the Annual Appropriation Act. No school will receive 100% funding, and for the last 12 years, the state has been providing 85% funding. The Board took the 40% and multiplied it with the 85%, that’s where the 34% came from.
More answers can be found on the referendum page via the school’s website, or the community can attend a public information session on Oct. 5.
