School bonds up to voters

SPANISH FORK — It's now up to the voters.

The Nebo Board of Education unanimously approved a resolution Wednesday to hold a special election in February, when it will ask residents of southern Utah County to approve $140 million in bonds to build new schools. Voters also will be asked to pass a property tax increase to operate those schools.

Striking population growth from Springville south has nearly doubled the number of students in the Nebo School District since 1980, from 12,590 to 23,900. That has produced overcrowding in district high schools, junior highs and middle schools. Elementary schools will be full in two years, Nebo superintendent Carl Nielson said.

Continued growth appears to be a given. The State Office of Education projects the district to have 33,316 students in 10 years and to double again in 20.

"We're excited about the resolution," Nielson said. "We've gotta have it. We're bursting at the seams. It's worst in our secondary schools, but the growth is going to hit us in both the secondary schools and the elementary schools."

The plan includes construction of new high schools in Salem and either Spanish Fork or Mapleton, seven new elementary schools and a junior high school in Mapleton. Springville Middle School would be converted to an elementary school, and the two remaining Nebo middle schools would be converted to junior highs.

Nebo officials said the bond is conservative. They chose to eliminate middle schools, returning sixth-graders to the elementary schools, to save money. That reconfiguration lowered the amount of the proposed bonds from $157 million to $140 million, district spokeswoman Lana Hiskey said.

The proposed leeway, or property tax increase, would be 0.0006. (A homeowner with a home valued at $150,000 would pay an additional $6.92 per month, or $83 per year.) State funds would match the new tax dollars at 45 cents on the dollar. Both the leeway and state funds would be used to operate the new schools.

"Our biggest fear is voters would approve the bonds and not the leeway," board member Debbie Swenson said. "Without the leeway, we could build the schools with the bond money and let them sit empty like some school districts have in the past, without the money to operate them."

The leeway, together with the matching state funds, would produce $2.9 million annually, said Dale Okerlund, vice president with Wells Fargo Brokerage Services who advises the school district.