Herricks school district voters will decide Dec. 6 whether to borrow $25 million and spend $3.3 million in reserves on major building projects.
The Herricks school board unanimously voted Thursday to set the spending referendum after a month of pitching a $29.5 million initiative, which includes extensive renovations at Herricks High School.
Voters will go to the polls again sometime after Dec. 6 to determine whether to let the district spend the other $1.2 million, which the district has not yet put into the capital reserve fund residents voted to create in 2015.
“We still have an amount that we can set aside in that reserve, but the district at this time can only ask to get approval for what has been set aside to date,” said Lisa Rutkoske, the assistant superintendent for business.
The $25 million bond would replace existing debt that will expire in the 2021-22 school year, meaning it would not raise residents’ property taxes, district officials have said.
Because it can only fund certain items, the reserve money will pay for a new emergency power generator at the high school and other infrastructure fixes at all seven of its buildings, according to the ballot proposition the school board approved.
The bond will fund larger projects, including renovations to the high school cafeteria, athletic fields and one of its science labs, as well as the construction of a new fitness center, said Rutkoske.
The projects are the top priorities on an $80 million list of fixes the district identified in a survey of its buildings last year. A committee created the package in June and presented it to residents in three meetings last month.
The district will pay Patchogue-based BBS Architects, the firm handling the projects, 5 percent of the total construction costs under a contract the school board approved Thursday.
The district plans to start replacing doors and windows and installing the new athletic field next summer after architects draft project designs in the spring, officials have said.
The projects will make necessary “health and safety” fixes throughout the district and modernize the 58-year-old high school, district officials have said.
A resident, Marc Zisselman, asked the board to coordinate the second reserve spending vote with the May budget vote and school board elections to avoid the cost of holding a separate vote.
The December referendum will cost the district about $18,000 between voting machine rentals, printing of ballots and voter registration books, poll workers and legal notices, Rutkoske said.
Polls will be open for the bond referendum from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. on Dec. 6 in the gymnasium of the Herricks Community Center at 999 Herricks Road in New Hyde Park.
