September 16, 2010
By MELANIE LAGESCHULTE
Competitive bids on current construction projects played a significant role in the Ankeny school district’s ability to now pay for the next elementary school with state sales tax revenue, officials said Monday.
Ankeny Centennial High School, which will begin to take shape this fall and open in August 2013, came in at $5.5 million under the estimated cost. Board President Andrew Martin said after Monday’s meeting that the lower cost for that project and others “has helped afford a lot of the savings.”
Superintendent Matthew Wendt said Monday afternoon that the careful estimates made by Chief Financial Officer Craig Hansel over the past few years also contributed to the good news. Wendt said Hansel deliberately kept those estimates low to make sure the district wouldn’t come up short as officials sought bids for Ankeny Centennial.
“We needed to be very conservative” due to the scope and cost of the high school, Wendt said.
The proposal for Prairie Trail Elementary School was defeated by voters in a September 2009 bond referendum; a date for a second vote had not been set. Plans now call for taking bids this fall and starting construction in the spring, with Prairie Trail Elementary School to open in August 2012. Construction costs for the elementary are estimated at $14 million.
Wendt said Prairie Trail will be a four-section school and will serve 500 students. Now that sales tax revenue can cover its construction, “it’s an automatic future savings for every taxpayer in our community,” he said.
Furniture, fixtures and equipment for Prairie Trail Elementary School will be paid for by getting permission from state education officials to purchase those items with money from the district’s regular budget. Those costs are already figured into the district’s financial estimates and projected future tax rates, officials have said.
Jarrett Peterson, coordinator of communications and marketing for the district, said Monday that now that the cost of Ankeny Centennial is known, officials have the ability to refine how much state sales tax revenue will be available for other needs.
Officials offered a proposal Monday that outlines all the projects that could be paid for out of roughly $28.8 million in sales tax revenue through 2016-17.
That resolution will be voted on by board members next week. The district’s plans already allow for sales tax revenue to be used to construct Prairie Trail Elementary School.
Jeff Riese of the Polk-Des Moines Taxpayers Association attended Monday’s board meeting. He said after the meeting that he thinks members of his organization will be pleased that the elementary can be built with sales tax revenue rather than property tax money.
Martin praised the new sales-tax revenue plan’s inclusion of several other projects, such as renovations at East Elementary School and the current high school, which will become Northview Middle School in August 2011.
“This is outstanding,” Martin said, “We are able to complete everything, from A to Z” that is part of the district’s master facility plan as well as some other projects.
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