The Highland School Board took a step forward with a $3.7 million bond petition. At Monday’s meeting, the board approved the dollar amount that will be written into a petition for a bond issue that would go towards replacing the HVAC system and windows at the secondary school, updating the playgrounds, and adding storage space within the fine arts department. OPN Architecture, MMS Consultants, and Design Engineers presented the estimate, which was about $400,000 more than the preliminary estimates. The changes were due to a miscalculation in design fees, and the addition of replacing windows at the high school. Consultant for Highland Schools Dr. Mike Jorgensen spoke to Piper Jaffray, the law firm who will put together the petition, and said when the estimate was at $3.3 million there was going to be no impact in property taxes, due to rising property valuations.

Despite the increased estimate, Jorgensen is optimistic that there will be little to no impact on property taxes, “If it did impact the taxes it would be very minimal, probably less than 10 cents. At this point I’d have to have them run the numbers, but it’s going to be a pretty minimal impact.”

Jorgensen also mentioned that if there was an increase in property taxes, the board could extend the payback time to reduce or eliminate the additional costs to taxpayers. Superintendent Ken Crawford said that in addition to the minimal tax impact, the rising property values will help the district pay off the bond in seven to eight years. Now the district will prepare a petition that will require around 50 signatures. If the petition receives enough signatures, the bond issue will be up for election. The target election date is Tuesday, August 6th.