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Consultant pitches interactive facilities plan as board weighs cost and follow‑through
Summary
DLR outlined a phased facilities study and an interactive online dashboard to update the district's 2019 assessments, model 5/10/15‑year scenarios and guide potential bond decisions; trustees pressed for assurances the district would act on the consultant's recommendations given tight reserves.
DLR consultant Ian Kilpatrick told the St. Joseph School Board that his firm would update the district's facility condition assessments, educational suitability reviews and run community engagement sessions aimed at producing a manipulable, online long‑range facilities dashboard. "It's really looking at the programming and conceptualization piece," Kilpatrick said, describing four community sessions and a 4–6 week initial data validation phase.
Board members repeatedly pressed DLR and district leaders about whether the consultant's work would be implemented if the firm identified costly needs. One trustee said the district needed to "listen to the professional advice" if it chose to spend outside money on a study, warning that prior plans had been set aside after adoption. Kilpatrick said the interactive platform would make tradeoffs transparent by showing dollar amounts tied to scenario choices and ripple effects across feeder patterns.
The presentation emphasized updating 2019 baseline data to reflect pandemic effects and more recent building work, then using the refreshed data as a "northstar" for scenario building, such as the district's shift to a two‑high‑school model. Kilpatrick suggested DLR's product would help the community understand the age, condition and instructional suitability of campuses and allow the board to model the fiscal impacts of options.
Administrators told the board they would bring capacity updates for Benton and Central by the next meeting and noted many district decisions will be driven by enrollment and state funding changes. Multiple trustees said community engagement must be robust and that the board needed a commitment to act on recommendations if the district pays for the work.
The board did not vote to hire DLR at the meeting. District staff said they would return with a contract and scope options and that any final procurement would include a clear scope of deliverables and community‑engagement schedule.
The item will return to a future regular meeting with cost and scope options for the board to consider.
