Tax would pay for many projects

The Amboy School District has a series of facility needs in all three buildings, with the most significant needs at Amboy Junior High School. The Amboy News did an exceptional story on the health/life/safety needs of Amboy Junior High School in May 2012.

For starters, the building needs a new roof. The cost of this project has been estimated at $500,000. In addition to the roof at AJHS, Amboy High School has 40 percent of the roof that needs to be replaced. This cost is an additional $150,000.

Central Elementary School, where we just replaced the roof, also has a heating system under the floor. We have been closely monitoring this heating system, which will eventually need to be replaced at a cost of $350,000.

Amboy High School is out of compliance around our cafeteria area because the existing fire doors are obsolete. Fire doors need to be retrofitted throughout the high school cafeteria area, which has been estimated to cost $150,000.

Throughout the district, our windows are not very energy efficient. Our heating bills continue to increase because of the existing windows. This district-wide project could cost $500,000.

As you can see, expenses are already approaching $1.65 million in jobs that must be completed under our health/life/safety requirements. Unfortunately, these are not the only needs of our facilities.

In addition to our health/life/safety requirements, we need to continue upgrading the infrastructures in all three buildings to stay on top of the instructional needs of our students. 

In other counties, the passage of the 1 percent sales tax has led to the lowering of property taxes. This has been accomplished when the school districts used those funds to pay off existing bonds. 

For more information, please contact the district office at 815-857-2164.

Note to readers – Jeff Thake is superintendent of Amboy Schools.