The Coquille School District will ask voters at the May Primary Election to approve a $14.555 million bond measure to improve the safety and accessibility of three district schools. Ballots for the May 21 Primary Election will be mailed to voters by May 2, according to the Elections Department of the Coos County Clerk’s Office.
Superintendent Wayne Gallagher said in an interview this will be the district’s third attempt to ask for construction funds, but the school staff and the public have reviewed and refined the remodeling plans in the past three years.
“We’ve got some infrastructure things and some safety issues that we’ve got to deal with,” he said, noting that in 2020 the district hired BRIC Engineering of Portland to assess all buildings. The firm issued a report describing the needed repairs. BRIC staff estimated it would take more than $61 million to bring all school buildings up to code.
“Nobody can afford that,” Gallagher said.
“We tried to pass a bond in May and November of 2021, but both failed, he said, so the school board “took a good, hard, honest look,” he said, and narrowed the scope of the work to the three buildings.
In 2022-23, Gallagher said, the board conducted meetings at all schools. A Facilities Committee prioritized improvements, then reported to the school board, which conducted work sessions during board meetings in the fall of 2023 to gather community opinions.
During the work sessions, the board learned about, applied for, and was awarded a $6 million Oregon School Capital Improvement Matching grant. But there’s a catch. To receive the state matching grant, the voters must approve a bond measure.
As a result, the school board set the amount of the bond measure at $14.555 million.
“The Number One thing was to address safety issues at all of our campuses,” Gallagher said, adding that among the improvements would be building secure vestibules at the main entrances of Coquille Junior/Senior High School, Coquille Valley Elementary and the Lincoln Early Learning Facility.”
Melinda Millet, chair of the Coquille School Board, said the board has spent many hours looking into the needs of its buildings and what is needed to keep them functional and useful for the years to come.
“We take seriously the responsibility of maintaining the resources we have for our community,” she said, adding, “The bond measure we hope to pass is a result of our findings on the condition of our buildings. Because most of the buildings in our school district are of considerable age, we need to take steps now to keep them safe and in good working order. This bond is all about the safety and functionality of the buildings.”
Millet noted that new heating systems are not flashy and exciting projects, but they are necessary to keep good working and learning environments for students and staff.
“We also need to bring our high school up to code seismically,” she added. “That is an issue that if we do not address sooner rather than later, it could lead to significant loss of life and property. As a school board, we feel that strategically investing in our buildings now will allow us to continue to use them for many years to come,” she said, noting “the Coquille School District is an important part of the Coquille community, and we hope that members of our community will realize that supporting the school district supports everyone.”
The school district estimates that if voters approve the measure, it would add $1.41 per $1,000 of assessed value to a homeowner’s tax bill. According to district figures, the owner of a home assessed at $158,000 (the Coquille average) would pay an additional $223 per year, or $19 per month, to finance the remodeling and construction.
Gallagher pointed out that although the district is asking voters to approve $14.555 million in bonds, the district could bring in more than $23 million with the state matching grant and a $2.5 million seismic grant for which it can apply.
If voters approve the measure, Gallagher said, the district hopes to sell the bonds by Aug. 1, then work with staff and the community to finalize the designs with HGE Architects of Coos Bay. Next, he said, the projects would be advertised for bid and a contractor hired with the intent to begin remodeling, once materials and supplies are ordered, in June 2025. The work would be done in phases and completed by June 2028. Meanwhile, schools would continue to operate.
“If successful, it would bring the total to improve schools to $23.055 million,” Gallagher said, adding “in a school district the size of Coquille, that’s a lot of money, and it will allow us to keep our schools open for another 50 years.”
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