CONRAD — After discussing the matter for months and consulting with an architectural firm on a facilities study, the BCLUW Board of Education formally approved a resolution to put an $8.8 million bond issue for improvements at the elementary and high school buildings in Conrad on the ballot in November during their August meeting held Monday.

According to Superintendent Ben Petty, the board took the next steps of calling for an election Nov. 7 on the $8.8 Million in General Obligation bonds, as well as passing a resolution supporting issuance of $4.6 Million in School Infrastructure, Sales, Services, and Use Tax Revenue Bonds (the penny sales tax funds), which would not affect the district’s property tax levy. With six board members present, the resolution passed 5-1 — Alan Donaldson was the lone dissenting vote. As the necessary number of signatures has been collected, the matter will now go to the Nov. 7 general election pending confirmation from the Grundy County Auditor’s Office.

As previously reported in the T-R, the bond issue would fund a new commons area/lunch room at the elementary school, building secure entrances at the elementary and high schools, additional classroom space to accommodate grades 5-8 and for agricultural science education, renovations to the current office areas, a new gym at the high school (which would be used for junior high and junior varsity events and would not replace the current competition gym) and new locker rooms and restrooms on the northeast side of the high school. It would also likely result in the closure of the district’s middle school building in Union — which Petty noted was the oldest and most expensive to maintain of the three current facilities — within the next five to 10 years.

The $8.8 million in GO bonds would increase property taxes by approximately $1.95 per $1,000 of valuation for residents of the district’s five communities and the surrounding rural areas. School bond votes require a 60 percent supermajority to pass.