WSD’s 10-year modernization plan goes to State

Reporting to Weiser School District’s board members during the Monday, Sept. 9 monthly trustees meeting that 136 community members had completed a recent Weiser School District survey ranking spending priorities for a 10-year school modernization plan, Superintendent Kenneth Dewlen said he would be sending the local plan to the state the next day.

 “Here’s the 10-year plan (based on) $5.9 million we’re getting from the state,” Dewlen said. “We got an increase from $5.6 million that we just heard about a couple of days ago.”

 Just minutes earlier, WSD Deputy Clerk Barbara Choate had told the board the good news that the district’s supplemental levy funded through local property taxes for the upcoming tax year has been reduced to $300,000 after the district received $782,000 in property tax relief from Idaho’s 2024 revenue surplus.

 “Just to clarify, we are talking about HB 292, and it is property tax relief,” Choate said. “What Mr. Dewlen is going to have you approve with the facilities plan,  that is HB521, which is school modernization. They are two entirely separate buckets of money. School modernization is a 10-year plan to upgrade our facilities, so two different buckets of money, both coming from the state instead of our (local) taxpayers, which is great news for all of us.”

 The state funds targeted towards upgrading and modernizing Idaho’s aging school buildings are made possible after the passage of HB521 during the 2024 state legislative session.

 Presenting the spending plan to begin in 2025 and spread out through 2030, Dewlen pointed out he had added $150,000 for both Weiser High School and Weiser Middle School for HVAC upgrades in 2025 after he learned about the additional $300,000 expected in the district’s total lump sum 

 “Remember, you’ve elected to get one lump sum,” Dewlen said. “We get that sum and put it in the bank, we draw the interest off of it.”

 According to the plan submitted to the state, the largest bulk of the total $5.9 million will be spent in 2025, $2,091,979, and 2026, $2,013,702.

 In 2025, along with the HVACs at WHS and WMS, new roofing on the main building at the high school, the middle school gym, both Park School’s main building and music building, and Pioneer’s main building and library will add up to $1,841,979. In addition, $250,000 is targeted to replace the Tom Falash Gymnasium’s floor.

 Fire and safety improvements in all four buildings located at the WHS campus, both buildings at Park School, and both buildings at Pioneer will be the bulk of the 2026 expense, totaling $1,727,278. Upgrading whiteboards, and electrical and technology wiring in all but Pioneer School will bring the total expenditures to $2,013,702.

 Parking lots are on the proposal to be repaired or replaced in 2027. Weiser High School’s comes in at $673,343; the middle school’s at $41,794; and Park School’s at $113,984. An additional $5,000 for HVACs in each of the high school’s ag and auto shops, Park’s music building, and Pioneer’s library will take the total to $849,121.

 Interior LED lighting is proposed to be added to all of the buildings in 2028, estimated to total $68,265.

 In Dewlen’s August presentation of his initial suggestions he had included $610,000 for two portable buildings that would add four classrooms at the high school. He told the board then that WHS had come very close to needing to set up classrooms in gyms during the 2023-2024 school year.

 At this month’s trustee’s meeting, he reported the district’s total enrollment as of that day was 1,478 students, “with a 95.4 percent average daily attendance.”

 Based on the numbers Dewlen had received from the community’s survey input, he said he had moved the portables to the bottom of the priorities list. 

 “I found some other room at the high school we can use or make more classrooms out of,” he said. “We’re starting to level off a little bit with our enrollment at the high school, so we’re okay right now.”

 The $610,000 is set in the plan for 2030, if it turns out they are needed.

 “The key is to get the plan turned in,” Dewlen said. “They’re only accepting a certain amount and when they get a certain amount, then the state goes out for the bond. If we don’t make that, then we have to wait for the next round.”

 The plan received a unanimous vote of approval from the board.