Superintendent Mark Witty has appointed a new committee to provide guidance on developing a bond measure to fund school improvements that he hopes will find favor with Baker School District voters.

The committee includes representatives of the business and agriculture communities, the medical community, senior citizens and parents.

Committee members are: Martin Arritola, Tori Brown, Jess Blatchford, Travis Cook, Stacy DeLong, Riley Hall, Coby Mastrude, Bob McKim, Lynette Perry, Wes Price, Angela Robb and Danae Simonski.

“Some of these people, I’m pretty confident, voted no on the original bond, and some voted yes,” Witty said in speaking to the Board at its Aug. 15 meeting. “We’re trying to cover various sectors.”

The group will meet three to four times in September and October and is scheduled to report back to the Board by Nov. 1.

The group’s charge, as approved by the Board at its July 9 meeting will be to:

• Review the facilities needs identified by the Long Range Facilities Planning Committee.

• Review the draft proposal being developed based on public feedback, and make recommendations about what should be addressed in a potential bond measure.

• Consider the different options for financing a potential bond, including amount of bond and length of payback period.

• Develop a timeline and long-term plan for addressing capital improvement projects relating to facilities needs.

• Recommend to the School Board a potential bond package that could be submitted to voters.

Witty said the new committee will not redo work performed by former committees, which gathered information leading to the earlier $48 million bond measure.

As with the past groups, the new committee’s only authority will be to recommend a course of action to the School Board and District administrators, Witty said.

In reviewing community comments made after the 2018 bond measure’s failure in November and in speaking directly with critics of the plan, Witty said he believes the District could succeed in the next election if certain changes were made.

He says patrons have spoken in support of a less expensive bond funded over a shorter period of time that would pay to remodel existing buildings rather than to build a new school.

The $48 million plan proposed in November 2018 included construction of a new elementary school and would have been paid for over a 30-year period.

The bond measure, which would have cost property owners $1.97 per $1,000 of assessed value. Voters rejected the measure, 68% to 32%.

In May, the Board considered a new plan presented by representatives of the Boise LKV Architects firm and the Wenaha Group, a project management group and consulting firm, that also worked with the District on last year’s bond measure.

The new plan has proposed asking voters in May 2020 to approve a $10 million bond to be paid over a 10-year term. A $4 million matching state grant and $2 million to be contributed by the School District would bring the total to $16 million.

The tentative proposal calls for the funding to be used to reconfigure existing buildings to make better use of available space. That would include placing K-2 students at Brooklyn Primary School; Grades 3-4 at South Baker; and moving Grades 5-6 to the current middle school building. Seventh- and eighth-graders would move to Baker High School with remodeling to separate the younger students from those in Grades 9-12.

The proposed improvements under the new plan also would include district-wide safety and security upgrades and energy efficiency improvements. Money also is included to pay for unanticipated expenses during construction.

There are no plans to upgrade the former North Baker Elementary School building, which would continue to be used by the Baker Web Academy and Early College, Eagle Cap High School and early learning programs.

Another group of community representatives is meeting to consider alternative uses for the Central School Building, which was closed by the School District in 2009.

Witty told the Board during its August meeting that the District expects to turn the building over to the BHS/Baker Technical Institute’s Brownfield environmental science class. The class could qualify for a $200,000 grant to begin the project and possibly acquire more grant funding to complete the work needed to revitalize the historic building and transform it into a community asset, he said.

Hazardous materials cleanup would include the removal of lead paint and asbestos, Witty said.

Another group is forming to work toward securing grants to fund improvements at the Baker High School auditorium, he said.

The Board also agreed to authorize Witty to hire a head grounds keeper, a position that was cut from the District budget in years past.

“I’ve been here four years and this has been a challenge point for me,” Witty said of the school grounds. “I think the grounds look better, but I’m not personally satisfied. When you own something you need to do your very best to keep it up.”

Witty said he would like to hire the new grounds keeper this fall and to provide training in the various aspects of the job, including pesticide and herbicide use and irrigation systems to prepare for next spring and summer.

Witty said he had been particularly frustrated with work this summer on the Baker Middle School field on the west side of the school. The installation of underground sprinklers was delayed by a mix-up in scheduling. The work has been completed and the field will be reseeded shortly, Witty said this week.

The long-term goal is to install underground sprinklers on fields throughout the District over a period of time, he said.

“It saves on the water bill and allows you to do a much better job,” Witty said.

The superintendent also has proposed adding a full-time assistant to the business office staff to help ease that workload.

The full-time position would replace Vickie Christensen, who has resigned effective Sept. 30. Christensen had transitioned recently from her longtime role as full-time payroll/ benefits coordinator to a part-time position. The new full-time assistant would provide help to the accounts payable and payroll departments to take pressure off other employees in those roles.

“As we grow our systems it puts more pressure on (them),” he said. “We’re getting to the point of pushing to where we’re going to lose people.

“You shouldn’t lose good people over not supporting them to get their jobs done,” Witty told the Board.