Mehlville School District voters will weigh in on the district’s first bond issue in nearly 30 years April 6.
Voters will decide whether to approve Proposition S for “Safe Schools, Safe Kids,” a 12-cent no-tax-rate-increase bond issue that would fund $35 million in safety upgrades and maintenance on existing facilities. If passed, the district will voluntarily roll back 12 cents of the 45-cent operational tax-rate increase for facilities, 2000’s Proposition P, which funds bond-like certificates of participation or COPs set to be paid off in 2022.
District residents may be unfamiliar with bond issues since they haven’t passed one since 1992, so Superintendent Chris Gaines held public meetings over the last several years with financial advisers and the Board of Education to outline the pros and cons of going for a bond issue, which is not permanent but requires a higher threshold of 57-percent voter approval, or going for an operational tax-rate increase, which only require