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FAIRMONT - At Tuesday's Fairmont School Board meeting, board members had to make a choice about whether or not to go out for a referendum on building fixes, updates and changes.
The vote will happen in less than three months, on Feb. 9, 2027. Board Member Michael Edman said this has been talked about at every operations committee meeting for as long as he can remember.
"We looked at the needs of both our buildings, at the high school in particular, and our programmatic needs with our arts department," he said. "We put it on the ballot, if you all recall, a question to the voters about making an investment in the infrastructure of our building. That was not a successful vote. We went back to the drawing board with ICS, our consultants, and we are going to ask the voters again to reconsider a different proposal than last time."
The previous referendum, in 2025, was for $21.7 million and covered everything they were looking to do at that time. In August of this year, a new referendum was first proposed, which Superintendent Andy Traetow said would require adjustments to the question structure or the scope of the project.
"The feedback that I personally receive, and I know that we collectively reviewed, the needs of the district are still there," Edman said. "We still need to invest in the health, safety and security of our building, especially as a high school. We also have substantial program deficiencies in our facilities for our largest participating program, our music and arts department."
These changes were presented at the Tuesday board meeting. This time, there will be two questions presented to voters. The first asks for $9.75 million for acquisition and betterment of school sites and facilities, including health, safety and security improvements for the elementary and high school.
In a press release, Traetow elaborated that this would include exterior building repairs and improvements at both schools, replacing failing wastewater piping at the high school, constructing a more secure entrance in front of the current high school entrance, remodeling existing locker rooms to meet compliance requirements and constructing an enclosed breezeway between the high school and the Career and Technical Education wing.
A second question will also be present, asking for $11.64 million in education support and other facility improvements across both schools.
If this question were approved, it would allow for construction of additional classrooms, restrooms, and support space for arts programs at the high school, flooring improvements at the elementary school, replacement of the current flooring in both auxiliary gyms at the high school and corridor flooring improvements at the high school.
"Both questions are essential, but we thought it was best in our conversations at committee that we give voters an opportunity to break it down into two different questions," Edman said.
This separation of funding into two questions also comes with a stipulation. Question two can only pass if question one passes. Even if question two gets enough yes votes to pass, if question one fails, both questions will fail.
Three potential outcomes are possible, depending on voting results. Both questions can pass, both can fail, or voters could choose to approve question one while rejecting question two.
A current estimate from the press release is that, for a residential property with an estimated market value of $200,000, question one would raise property taxes by $4.33 a month and questions one and two would result in an impact of $6.40 per month.
Ultimately, the decision was left in the hands of the school board whether to approve or reject going out for a referendum. In a unanimous vote, the board moved forward with sending this new referendum out to voters.
"I never think it’s a bad idea to ask the citizens and the voters for their direct input and their vote," Edman said. "We do the homework. We present to them what we think are objectively good ideas, and ultimately they get to decide if that’s something that they want to support."
Mail-in and early in-person voting will begin at the first available point on or after Friday, Dec. 25. Election day itself will be Feb. 9, 2027.
In other business at the meeting:
-- Traetow gave an update on the Habitat for Humanity project. He said within their grant-aligned project, students will now be building a garage extension to a house in lieu of a full home construction project.
-- Kim Niss, Principal of Curriculum, Instruction and Research, gave the yearly presentation on Comprehensive Achievement and Civic Readiness goals. Out of seven goals, they met or were on track to meet five of them.