Colton Joint Unified staff recommend 47 Measure BB projects; board gives direction to pursue first bond series

The Colton Joint Unified School District board on July 17 heard a detailed Measure BB update from district staff and outside consultants asking for direction to proceed with an initial bond sale and a prioritized project list. Financial adviser Mike Williams told the board the district could issue as much as $150,000,000 in a first series under current debt-service assumptions, subject to certification requirements and a three-to-five year spend-down standard.

Staff framed the prioritization around a weighted, 10-category scoring matrix used to evaluate 247 candidate projects and produce a recommended set of 47 projects. Facility director Owen Chang and consultant Randy Duncan walked trustees through the scoring categories — safety and security, stakeholder engagement, parity and equity, state match eligibility, capacity and age of facilities, among others — and highlighted projects recommended for the first series, including new classrooms, restrooms, secured office entrances, public-address upgrades, shade shelters and targeted CTE investments.

"We are looking at the possibility of issuing up to $150,000,000 on the first series of bonds," Mike Williams said, adding that the district must certify it can spend proceeds within required time limits. Owen Chang said staff identified roughly $1.8 billion in total facility needs across the district and that prioritization is intended to maximize equity and state matching funds. He told the board staff recommended 47 near-term projects totaling the school-site budgets cited in the presentation ($103,890,000) and a separate set of districtwide initiatives, including an updated five-year facilities master plan required for state match eligibility.

Board members pressed staff for clarifications about specific campuses and timing. Trustees asked whether projects such as 16 classrooms at Bloomington High would be built modularly or via conventional construction; Chang said modular, preengineered options could reduce per-square-foot costs and shorten construction timelines, with modular estimates roughly $800–$850 per square foot versus about $1,200 per square foot for conventional stick-built, and a preliminary estimate of about $25,000,000 for a 16-classroom package (roughly 20,000 square feet).

Staff emphasized strategies to leverage state matching programs (modernization projects can be eligible for a 60% state match in some cases) and noted contingency and escalation must be factored into final budgets; Randy Duncan explained the scoring awarded extra points for projects that can attract state match dollars. Several campus-level budgets were cited in the presentation: a $21,800,000 two-project package at Alice Boerne Elementary (10 classrooms) and a $10,400,000 package at Mary B. Lewis Elementary (five classrooms plus office expansion and parking improvements), among others.

By the end of the discussion trustees present signaled consensus to advance the priority list, ask staff to prepare for a first bond issuance with the district’s financial adviser and to begin soliciting architects and professional services so high-priority projects can be shovel-ready for later phases. The board did not adopt a final resolution to sell bonds at the meeting; staff said the next steps are to refine budget figures, update spreadsheets for trustees, complete design scopes for projects tagged as "design only," and proceed with the bond-market planning process.

The district will return with more precise cost updates, and staff stressed that the prioritized list is a living document subject to revision as cost estimates, grant awards and state-match determinations are finalized.