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Agency official says May bond referendum offers timely chance to fund school improvements
Summary
A district official for the South St. Paul Public School Dist told attendees the district plans to place two questions on a May ballot to fund capital projects, citing expiring bond debt, a recent drop in the property tax levy and a community engagement timetable that could allow construction in summer 2027.
An agency official for the South St. Paul Public School Dist said the district will ask voters in May to approve two ballot questions to fund priority capital projects, arguing the timing captures expiring debt service and gives the district time to engage the community and prepare to break ground in summer 2027.
"We're able to hopefully capture that back at absolutely no additional cost and then with just a slight increase, be able to do some things," the agency official said, describing how recently paid-off bonds create capacity to take on new projects.
The official noted the district passed an operating referendum several years ago and credited those dollars with adding programming and improving student achievement in math and reading while statewide scores remained flat.
The official also said the district's property tax levy fell this year and that enrollment has been declining "a little bit" because of lower birth rates, suggesting the proposed increase could be mitigated by those trends over the next year or two. The official did not provide numerical enrollment or tax figures in the transcript.
On timing, the official said a May vote would allow the district — assuming voter approval and confirmation that the district "has got the block of clay purchased" — to spend the summer and fall conducting community engagement on priorities, solicit contractor bids over the winter and aim to break ground the following summer. The transcript phrase "block of clay" appears to refer to a parcel of land the official said the district has secured.
The official warned that delaying a vote until November would compress the timeline and likely prevent breaking ground the next summer, and said the district hopes to limit the May ballot to the two school questions so the community can focus on the proposal. The official also said the district's capital projects levy does not expire until 2029 but that aligning that levy with the bond initiative would provide a longer runway for planning.
If the measures pass, the official said the district will use the funds to address the most critical needs, reset its priority list and begin long-term planning. The official did not state a specific election date beyond "May," nor did the transcript include vote amounts, detailed project lists or a draft bond amount.
The district's next steps, as described in the transcript, are community engagement over summer and fall, requesting bids over the winter and targeting summer 2027 for construction if voters approve the proposals.
