News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
The proposed bond would include $3.5 million to pay for the construction of eight classrooms at the elementary school and remodel the old intermediate school site for seventh and eighth graders.
Replacing and/or upgrading computers, software and other technology at Sisters Middle/High School is estimated to require $400,000. Textbook purchases over a five-year period are provided for with $300,000.
Other capital projects include building storage space for teachers in the event a year-round calendar is adopted, building playgrounds and fields, equipment replacement and maintenance and digging an irrigation well at the middle/high school site.
The well was allocated $80,000. District Business Manager Earl Armbruster told the board he has budgeted $46,000 for water over next year, absorbing a 250 percent increase in water costs because the City of Sisters will charge the schools for water on a metered rate.
Board chairman Bill Reed said a well was a sound investment.
"Given the cost of city water these days, I think we can get a payback on that irrigation well in a five year period," Reed said.
Traffic safety improvements at the elementary school were given $30,000 in the proposed plan. According to Armbruster, those improvements could include a turn lane on Cascade and a new entrance into the school parking lot.
Board member Jan van den Berg emphasized that the proposed expenditures are not fixed and that the district was not committed to spending all of the $2 million.
"Any of these items are open to further scrutiny," van den Berg said.
Armbruster noted that some of the proposed maintenance and capital projects lie in the future.
"We're looking five, six years down the road for some of these projects," he said.
But Armbruster was comfortable presenting the plan to the public.
"I could stand up and look anybody in the eye and defend any of these (items)," he said.
Jim Cornelius is editor in chief of The Nugget and author of “Warriors of the Wildlands: True Tales of the Frontier Partisans.” A history buff, he explores frontier history across three centuries and several continents on his podcast, The Frontier Partisans. For more information visit www.frontierpartisans.com.
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