The Wichita School Board’s decision to call a special election in February — instead of posing its bond issue question during a general or primary election — will cost the school district an additional $113,000. And it could result in lower voter turnout. But Superintendent Kelly Bielefeld said the district can’t afford to wait. The school board didn’t finish its facilities master plan in time to get the $450 million bond issue on the ballot for this November. “We would really like to get construction started next summer,” Bielefeld said. “And so to wait until later in the spring, April or May, makes that not possible. Then to wait, you know, until November of ‘25, the soonest we would then have dirtwork moving would be summer of ‘26. We would lose an entire year. . . . We need this, and we need it soon.” Bielefeld said he would have preferred to pose the question to voters this November, during the presidential election, “but the timing of the master plan, the amount of community feedback we needed — that timeline was just too short.” The Kansas Board of Education has to approve the measure because the price tag exceeds the cap on bonded indebtedness school districts are allowed to have in Kansas. The cap is 14% of assessed value within a school district. The cap for Wichita schools is $589.2 million. The school district already has $157 million in unpaid bonded debt, and the additional $450 million would exceed the debt limit by more than $18 million. The state board is expected to take up the Wichita question at a future meeting.
Source: Local News | Wichita Eagle
