GROVE, Okla. — While much of the attention lately has been on the November presidential election, Green Country has some local elections coming up on Aug. 27, with a number of them being school bonds.
Grove Public Schools will have yet another bond on the ballot that day.
At $9.8 million, the latest version of this bond is astronomically smaller than April 2’s. That one was $129 million and would have been the biggest in the district’s history. 56 percent of voters struck that one down.
This is the third attempt at this bond.
When asked how confident he was this time, Superintendent Pat Dodson replied: “I don’t know how confident I am. We’re gonna do the best we can to get the message out because the biggest complaint was of this too big a package of the last one, so the package is smaller. It’s basically addressing immediate needs with no tax increase.”
After that last bond, they made some drastic changes to lower the price tag and fund it without taxes.
“We’ve listened to the people — they’ve come in, and they’ve been honest with me,” Dodson emphasized.
“Some have sat in my office and told me the reason they voted no because they’re getting hit pretty hard in other areas and they weren’t ready for a tax increase,” he recalled. “So, we tried to wind it down to where we can generate funds to make some capital improvements and incrementally make our improvements without a tax increase.”
This time around, GPS has removed some of the more expensive items, such as a new junior high school, to relieve overcrowding.
Dodson told us this latest proposal is more of a “maintenance bond,” saying a bond measure is the only way to fund certain projects.
“Our building fund doesn’t supply us enough money for the capital improvements that we need,” he noted.
“Just for instance, today I signed a bill — our electric bill — $35,000 for the past month. We pay salaries of our building fund for maintenance,” he added. “So, we never will have enough money just from our building fund to make the capital improvements needed to stay up with the needs of our district.”
This latest bond proposal focuses on renovations and repairs throughout the district, such as installing new roofs at the Lower Elementary School and High School, remodeling playgrounds, making some bathroom improvements, and much more.
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Notably, $2.1 million is outstanding from an unpaid and unfinished bond that voters approved in June 2022, according to the GPS bond webpage. Voters said yes to a $4.3-million bond to fully construct, furnish, and equip a new performing arts center. The Aug. 27 bond proposal would fund repairs and expansion of the Performing Art Center’s parking if voters approve it.
Here’s the full list of projects the upcoming bond covers:
- to acquire and install a new roof on the Lower Elementary School and on the High School
- to acquire and install High School flooring
- to renovate, repair, remodel and/or acquire improvements to playgrounds to improve safety and ADA accessibility
- to renovate, repair, remodel and/or acquire improvements to building access and safety and security systems district wide as needed
- to construct, renovate, repair and/or acquire parking lots at the Performing Art Center
- to repair and/or replace HVAC district wide as needed
- to renovate, repair, and/or acquire improvements to building sites district wide as needed, to include roofing, flashing, caulking, new windows, and masonry repair
- to renovate, repair, remodel and/or acquire improvements to bathrooms to improve ADA accessibility
- to construct, furnish, equip, renovate, repair, remodel, and/or acquire improvements district wide as needed to include, but not be limited to: flooring, paint, cabinetry and furniture
Dodson hopes to get more voter turnout this time around. According to him, about 20 percent of parents with children attending GPS schools voted last time.
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