LEWES — At its regular meeting last Thursday, the Cape Henlopen School Board heard the staff proposal for its next Certificate of Necessity, or funding request to the state, which could result in a familiar question being posed to district voters.
The proposal is the same as the one voters initially rejected in March, which included an indoor swimming center, purchase of 103 acres of land, construction of a bus maintenance depot and to remove and rebuild the district administration office on another site.
There were no cost proposals included in this initial presentation.
The cost to taxpayers last year was $.549 per $100 assessed, and it was rejected by about 490 votes in what was then the largest referendum in Cape Henlopen School District history.
Following the defeat, the schools took the risk to come back a second time for another referendum, but removed the pool request and fiddled with the plans some more, bringing the cost down to a tax increase of about $.391 per $100 assessed. This too was defeated by about 600 votes in the very largest referendum in Cape Henlopen School District history.
The board took no action but to listen to the proposal late last week, and said it would discuss the matter more during its next meeting, currently scheduled for Aug. 15.
The Certificate of Necessity is the school district’s request to the state to seek funding for a certain project. For the Cape Henlopen Schools, the first priority is expanding the high school, as has been said by Bob Fulton, superintendent, as well as other board members, repeatedly.
If the certificate is approved by the Delaware Board of Education, the schools are allowed to pursue a referendum to secure the local share of the funding.
Different projects are funded at different rates, but capital projects, like land purchases or construction, are funded in a 60-40 split with the state, but the state must grant permission for the district to seek that funding from the residents.
In 2023, the request was to expand the high school, which was not accepted by the state, because certain preliminary projects needed to take place first.
Mr. Fulton said frequently the state didn’t “say no, they said not yet,” because to expand the school, first the lot needed more parking and better stormwater mitigation. Both goals, he said, could be met by moving the current administration office.
But the schools contend they don’t have a place to move it to. So, for the next certificate of necessity, in 2024, the schools began looking around for land it could use for several purposes, including perhaps the future site of another school.
Finding a suitable 103-acre lot, the schools also intended to construct a site to maintain its bus fleet there.
Completing its proposal was not something the schools needed to expand, but something it had talked about previously: an indoor swimming facility available to all students.
Though a contentious item at the time, the referendums both failed with and without the pool proposal, leaving the school board to pass a flat budget while starting the 2025 process late last week.
If the schools and state pass the same proposals again, the Cape Henlopen School District could be facing a redo of March’s referendum, featuring the same proposal, the same district superintendent, the same elected members of the school board, and generally the same electorate.
Staff writer Brian Gilliland can be reached at 410-603-3737 or bg@iniusa.org.
Most Popular
Comments / 0