School bond for new elementary school fails in Salmon School District
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SALMON — A $25.6 million bond to build a new elementary school in Salmon failed to find voter approval Tuesday.
Of the 2,848 people who voted, only 1,664 voted yes, which equaled out to 58 percent of the total vote. The bond required a 66.7 supermajority vote to pass.
This is not the first time Salmon School District 291 has struggled to raise money to build new schools. Within the past decade, the patrons have rejected bonds eight other times to repair or replace schools.
RELATED: Salmon School District seeking $25 million bond for new school
Currently, middle schoolers — grades six through eight — are housed with high school students at Salmon Junior/Senior High School after the old Salmon Middle School was closed due to disrepair. The rest of the students are at Pioneer Elementary school, in a building with aging infrastructure from the 1950s. Both schools use portable classrooms to house students.
“(The elementary school) is an old building and a needs assessment shows it needs more repairs,” Superintendent Chris Born said earlier this year. “The recommendation was to drive for new construction.”
If the bond had passed the school would have housed Pre-K through eighth-grade kids and accommodated some 650 students.
Taxpayers would have had to pay an additional $265 a year per $100,000 of taxable property for the next 20 years.