Hendrick Hudson Trustees Support Bond
It appears likely that a roughly $25 million capital projects bond will be up for voter approval in December in the Hendrick Hudson School District.
At their Oct. 12 meeting all members of the school board, as well as several residents, voiced their support for the bond.
The board of education is scheduled to vote on the bond, which would be paid off in 20 years, on Oct. 19 and residents will vote on it on Dec. 14
Some of the bond projects include the construction of an 850-seat “community performing arts center” on the high school campus. Also at the high school, the bond includes instructional space improvements, the reconfiguration of a science lab and a classroom to accommodate a bio-medical and science research program, and enhancement of the school’s athletic fields.
The bond would also/ include the improvement of performing arts spaces at the district’s two elementary schools. At the middle school the bond would include plans to renovate classrooms and improve a lab to accommodate life science and river ecology classes and improve the school’s performing arts center. Some of the other potential projects would include upgrades of the district’s technology infrastructure, some furniture replacement, replacement of the high school gym roof; the rehabilitation of septic fields at Blue Mountain Middle School and Furnace Woods Elementary Schools; and the repair and replacement of a portion of the Buchanan Verplanck Elementary School roof.
The estimated cost of the bond is $25.29 million, but Assistant Superintendent for Business Enrique Catalan said the final cost that would be presented to the school board next week would be lower because the $25.29 million figure was based on an interest rate of 2.7 percent. But Catalan said he recently learned that the current interest rate to pay off the district’s current debts is actually 1.75 percent.
According to the district’s Facility Committee, which has worked several months to come up with the bond proposal, 10 percent of the total bond would be reimbursed through state aid and $600,000 remaining from a previous bond could be used to hold down the final cost of the proposed bond.
Based on an interest rate of 2.7 percent, the owner of the median valued home in the Peekskill section of the school district would pay an additional $82 for the bond in 2015-16 and $158 more in the following year and the owner of the median valued home in the Cortlandt section of Hendrick Hudson would pay an additional $158 in 2015-16 and extra $305 the following year, compared to this year’s school taxes.
Board of Education President Marion Walsh said she was initially skeptical about putting up a bond months ago, but she has been convinced that now was the time for the bond. “We have to put faith in our students. It’s a mark of a great community,” Walsh said.
Trustee Laurie Ryan said the bond should be approved, even in the current economic climate. “I know it’s tough times, but this is a good thing,” she said.
“It’s an exciting project that is gong to meet a lot of the community’s needs,” Trustee William Oricchio said.
Superintendent of Schools Dr. Daniel McCann said the process of creating the bond proposal took several months. Committee members did research in several other school districts, including Yorktown, Lakeland and Croton, which recently implemented bond projects, McCann said.
Several residents expressed their support for the bond at the meeting. Michael Stermberg said passage of the bond would “keep the property values up.” It was also important to improve programs in the district through the bond projects, he said. Improvement in education was needed to “keep America competitive,” he said.
Parent Janice Shaw said she works in the Port Chester School District, which has a new performing arts facility and one was needed in Hendrick Hudson at the high school. The facility is “what we don’t have in this school that we need.”
But support for the bond was not unanimous. A resident, who declined to be identified following the bond discussion, said many residents are struggling economically and this is not the time to put up a bond, she said. Some residents do not know how they will pay for their heating oil bill, she said.
