Pleasantville School District Mulls $15M Facilities Upgrade
News Based on facts, either observed and verified directly by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.
The Pleasantville Board of Education outlined a proposed $15 million capital project last week that would upgrade the district’s facilities but would require a December referendum to borrow most of the money for the work.
District officials said they may ask the public to borrow about $13 million while using roughly $2 million from the district’s capital reserve fund.
Proposed upgrades and renovations would include replacing the turf on the main field and practice field, resurfacing the track, adding bathrooms, lighting the main field, and adding turf to the upper field.
Another potential item is replacing the playground turf and playground structures and rubber surface at the Bedford Road Elementary School playground.
The district’s artificial turf, which lasts 10 to 12 years, will reach the end of its life.
For the board, safety is a key factor when considering the scope of work. Trustee Michael Busch pointed out that many of the upgrades aren’t optional.
“We are getting a lot more for a relatively small amount of money,” Busch said. “It’s a no-brainer.”
The language of the proposition is tentatively scheduled to be approved by the board on Oct. 8. The community would vote on a proposition that would be scheduled for a Tuesday in December. The precise date of the vote has not yet been set.
Assistant Superintendent for Business John Chow said taxpayers’ first payments on the new bond would be in the 2027-28 school year. The latest projections from the district call for an estimated $167 additional payment in property taxes for the average homeowner for the first two years of the 15-year bond. Debt that would be expiring for the 2029-30 school year would negate that increase for the remaining years of the bond.
“We based the average household assessed value of $8,000 for households in the school district,” Chow explained. “If you have a more expensive house, you pay more, if you have a less expensive house, you pay less.”
Chow outlined the timeline for necessary approvals, which would include advertising and awarding construction bids in time to start work in March 2026. With that schedule, the project would be completed in September 2026.
An architectural firm and an engineering firm have to be hired to calculate exact costs that would be submitted to the state Education Department (SED) for its required approval. Chow said the SED approval process can take up to nine months.
An attorney also has to be retained to craft language for the mandatory state Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA) that weighs potential environmental impacts.
Chow said that the district is required to advertise the referendum 45 days before the December vote.
“Communication is crucial. We need to let all the residents and taxpayers know what we are doing and we need to have approval for the proposition,” Chow said.
Superintendent of Schools Dr. Tina DeSa said a communication plan is already in progress.
“We have some established communication methods to explain the project,” DeSa pointed out. “This is a great opportunity for partnership with the board and the district.”
The capital project will likely be reviewed at upcoming school board meetings on Sept. 24 and Oct. 8. Discussions are expected to focus on the total estimated costs for each athletic facility improvement, the phasing out of current bonds, the percentage of the project that is eligible to receive state building aid and the language of the proposal to be voted on in December by taxpayers.
Village taxpayers, many of whom are in the Pleasantville School District will face another tax impact in the coming years with the pool reconstruction project. The village pool is scheduled to reopen next Memorial Day.
Abby is a local journalist who has reported on breaking news for more than 20 years. She currently covers community issues in The Examiner as a full-time reporter and has written for the paper since its inception in 2007. Read more from Abby’s editor-author bio here. Read Abbys’s archived work here: https://www.theexaminernews.com/author/ab-lub2019/
