Published: February 27, 2009 10:19 pm      

Northeast asks: How many pennies make a million?

By MaryLou Hinrichsen

Herald Staff Writer

GOOSE LAKE— The Northeast School Board will interview two more architects in March about proposals for a combination auditorium and fine arts classrooms.

The one-penny sales tax area residents are already paying for goods and services is expected to bring in enough to pay the estimated $2.8 million cost of the structure.

The current tax, distributed on a per pupil basis, has been bringing in enough to make many major improvements in the district. The amount is expected to go to about $600 per student under the state-wide program.

Northeast has 555 local students this semester. Open-enrolled students, of which Northeast has 173, are not counted for distribution of the tax money.

Because the state-wide plan has been set up to continue until 2029, it is a secure backing for the sale of bonds for up front cash for projects such as the auditorium, the board was told in January by Matt Gillaspie, a Des Moines bonding attorney

Northeast has been using about $125,000 from the current sales tax to help make the annual payments on the bonds for the elementary school. Those bonds will be paid off in about four years.

Last week, four of the school board members traveled to Waverly, where they viewed an auditorium designed by Robert Stensland, principal architect of Modern Designs, Janesville.

Stensland had been hired by the board earlier, at a cost not to exceed $5,000, to produce a conceptual design of an auditorium of a size to fit Northeast’s needs.

Stensland suggested a building of 16,500 square feet with seating for 450 and about four classrooms. He said the typical cost is $1.75 per square foot.

“That’s $2.8 million,” Northeast superintendent Jim Cox said at last week’s meeting. Management and bonding expenses could raise the cost to $3.3 million, he said.

“That’s really cutting it close (to the amount of sales tax expected). You can do it, but some of the other projects will not get done very quickly.”

While all of the board members said they were comfortable with Stensland, they agreed with Mary Smith, who said, “We owe it to the people of the district (to hear proposals from other firms) in a project of this size.”

While some may question building an auditorium in these economic times, Cox said he has received several phone calls and e-mails from engineers and contractors looking for work.

Representatives of Ament Engineering of Cedar Rapids and of Richard L. Johnson Associates, Rockford, Ill., have been invited to the board’s March 17 meeting (changed from the regular date of March 18).

The session is scheduled to start at 5 p.m., with architects presenting at that hour and 6 p.m. Stensland will then present at 7 p.m. The regular board meeting will start at 8 p.m.

At that time, Cox has promised to bring a list of projects that might have to be postponed if the auditorium is to be paid for with the sales tax.