High price for high schools
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paid consultants, architects, engineers and bonding company employees to provide further advice on funding.

Some of these players would be interested in getting the district’s business, Stoutamyer admits, but he’d be willing to listen to their ideas if they offered them at their own expense.

“It’s a matter of whether those individuals would step forward as a group, to move us in the right direction, and then let the district do interviews to figure out which company we would like to do business with,” Stoutamyer says. “That’s all up in the air.”

Several architects have already expressed interest in the project and have attended recent school board meetings, including William Prather of Prather Tucker Associates Incorporated, a small architectural firm in Springfield. He has worked with District 186 on past health/life safety projects, and was recently approached by DLA Architects, Ltd., a larger firm from Chicago.

“They were looking for someone to team up with locally to go after some, if not all of the work,” Prather says. “They came down and wanted to go to the workshop meeting…to get face-time in front of the board members.”

Prather, a graduate of Springfield High School, says in his experience, it’s easier to start from scratch on school buildings rather than trying to adapt new teaching techniques and technology to old buildings.

Another idea Stoutamyer offers is funding Option B through a lease-purchase option, which would basically allow private companies to foot the construction bills and then lease the buildings back to the school district.

“There could be the possibility that between several different individuals coming up with money to front the school construction, we wouldn’t have to ask the community for a dime,” Stoutamyer says.

Agnes Nunn, director of business services for Springfield Public Schools, has asked the district’s financial consultant, Tammie Beckwith Schallmo, from PMA Financial Group, to present more information on funding, including the lease-purchase option, at the Feb. 15 school board meeting. Nunn says that the board has also shown interest in pairing generated revenue from a sales tax increase with the lease-purchase option to pay for new high school facilities.

“This is something totally new to us,” Nunn says. “We are trying to gather information for the board, to see if that’s feasible for us to do those projects that are needed for the high schools.”

Rank and file

In order to successfully pass a sales tax increase, Moore says, the board will need to show voters how the district plans to use the generated revenue. And since the full 1-percent increase wouldn’t fully fund Option B, even if approved, he continues, the board needs to choose parts of the plan that deserve immediate attention.

“It at least gets something started,” Moore says. “We can start working on improvements to our facilities, and from there, possibly go for additional revenue down the road.”

The recently approved resolution to seek support for the sales tax increase also permits the school board to continue evaluating Option B and to prioritize its projects. White suggests calling on Dave Smith, the district’s director of operations and maintenance, to help achieve this goal. The board could gain the community’s trust, she adds, if it starts with less controversial items, such as a second gym at Southeast.

“We need to take it piece by piece,”