EXTERNAL APPROACH
FL schools adapt to growth without a millage increase
FOUNTAIN LAKE — After a failed millage increase request in February, the Fountain Lake School District is adapting to student growth by taking an external approach — adding onto and using existing space on campus.
Superintendent Michael Murphy said Tuesday the school board currently has no plans to seek another millage request following the 1,793-1,246 defeat of a 5-mill increase to build a new elementary school, multipurpose building and to perform other campus improvements.
Along with two modular building additions for needed classroom space, the district is using an outdoor pavilion area as an option for students to help with cafeteria overflow.
“We looked at a six-room addition on the back side of Safe Room B,” he said. “We looked at expanding the cafeteria space externally and then we looked at maybe doing an outdoor eating area and what the cost of a pavilion might be.
“We had a pavilion in another area of the campus that was not being used at a high level so we looked at the relocation of that. We looked at modular buildings as being maybe a quicker approach to some structures on the campus that we thought we might be able to use within the school year.”
The two modular buildings are planned to be in place by the end of the year but due to supply chain issues could be as late as next summer. To build a traditional building behind Safe Room B, he said, costs would exceed $300 per square foot.
“What we have investigated and found since then on the square footage is, gaining egress to them and creating ADA accessibility to a building that is roughly just short of 36 inches off the ground, that creates its own inherent challenges,” Murphy said.
“We’re a little bit uncertain what it would look like at the elementary campus. We’re wanting to build some smaller classrooms for them, but over there in that area, we have significant grade elevation changes. So that’s kind of creating a challenge.”
The focus is having classes connected to their respective schools.
“What we’re attempting do here, with these two modulars, is to free up some secondary space where we can have a couple of classrooms that we desperately need so that all of our high school classrooms are in the high school — where we currently have one high school classroom in the middle school,” he said.
“That would be one objective to be met.
“The other objective would be to allow for us to do some intervention resources in this other modular building that we’re creating. We’re currently doing some intervention resources in an entryway, an old office area, and we’re making that work. But if we can create a more functional space in that regard in the short-term, that’s what we would like to do,” Murphy said.
The concrete-based covered pavilion, which is adjacent to the
cafeterias, is also used for after-school activities and optional classroom space for fair weather days. He said the main goal of the district, however, is monitoring the safety, access and movement of students from building to building, in addition to vehicular traffic.
“When you’re working with buildings that are perceived to be temporary, they typically become permanent. And so we’re trying to at least put something on our campus that is functional and cost-effective, knowing full well that it probably will be permanent,” he said.
The school board also did not feel comfortable with pursuing another millage increase, he said, until new reappraisals were performed. Depending on level of adjustment, it can mean a lower millage rate.
“With all those uncertainties we really wanted to let all the dust settle around reappraisal,” he said. “That’s what we heard a lot of among voters is, ‘Are you really going to need this increase (in) millage? Because you’re going to get this new money associated with reappraisal.’ Anything above a 10% on real estate, yearover-year, requires the district to roll back the current millage rate proportionally so that a taxpayer would not incur any more than a 10% increase.”
In addition to enrollment trends, the board will monitor current economic conditions and its effect on the community.
“All of those factors go into play when you’re kind of making decisions coming off of a failed millage such that we are. We’re trying to use existing cash to create a temporary solution for an issue that we view, you know, especially when we look at school safety and school security as a component of that, probably wouldn’t require us to go back to the voters to create the best longterm solution,” he said.
He said it is difficult to predict how taxpayers will react to a tax increase and it is becoming increasingly challenging for them to be embraced by a community.
“If we can offset some of our increases that we received here in the reappraisal and can sustain a higher assessment, maybe we could ask for a smaller millage rate,” he said.
“We could scale back the overall proposal instead looking at a multi-tier approach where we’re looking at secondary programming, extracurriculars, and elementary programming — maybe we scale that back to elementary programming only. If you scale that back, it may have a different influence to the number of mills that you’re going to need to ask.”