The Wayland Union Schools’ bond request in August has been set at a total of $48.5 million, but Assistant Superintendent Patricia Velie insists district residents will not pay any more in taxes if they approve it.

Though some may greet this news with disbelief, the assistant superintendent for finance and operations explained that the schools’ bond issue for football stadium turf and a middle school addition approved several years ago has been paid off and therefore is being dropped. What remains if the bond issue is passed is essentially the same tax rate, 8.4 mills, for the next 25 years.

Velie Monday night presented the Wayland Board of Education with the bond application, approved for being filed with the state treasurer.

The request includes about $8 million for a variety of projects — toilet room renovations, new furniture, technology upgrades and new carpeting will be done for the elementaries at Dorr, Baker and Steeby. The middle school will get a new roof and windows. Pine Street will see renovations for its ancient gym, and the high school would get an expanded wood shop and auto shop room, renovated parking lot to the west.

But the biggest chunk of the $48.5 million would go to replacing an aging 48-year-old swimming pool that has outlived its usefulness and become horribly costly to repair. The current facility breaks down often and is no longer acceptable as a pool for interscholastic competition. Installed in 1974 when the high school was opened, it just hasn’t kept up with new trends and new demands.

Architects and engineers have said the new pool will include 10 lanes, four more than offered now, and a much improved ventilation system.

But the first phase of the project will be the $8 million in repairs at the schools. After that, work will begin on $20.25 million for the first phase of replacing the old pool.

7 Comments

Mike
March 15, 2022
I'm curious to know how many people use the pool. Statistics for something like this would go a long way to help justify the spending. If we're investing $25 million dollars (as has been estimated) in a pool that 1,000 people use were talking about investing $25,000 into each person using it. What if it's 10,000 people that use the pool? That would be $2,500 per person using it. I doubt 10,000 people use the pool. If 25% of the entire population of Wayland and Dorr used the pool, that's about 4,000 people (which still seems high), it's costing about $6,700 per person using the pool.
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Cathy
March 15, 2022
This calculation looks like it is for one year. If the renovation lasts as long as the original you would need to calculate for 48 years.
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Steve
March 15, 2022
If you build a pool that can hold Swim meets or Water polo tournaments invitationals and conference meets with enough seating you would have over a 1000 people in there in a weekend on any one of those events. On the cost per person you could say the same thing for any other sports at the high school as in football soccer baseball softball track Etc. How many people use those fields or gyms probably about the same argument. It all depends on if we want to be a good school District that people want to come to or do you want to be a great school district to come to that gives my children and my friends children a chance to compete and not be held back by a In adequate pool. Not to mention the other sports like boys and girls water polo that could be added. To give the kids another Avenue to play sports. (Do we want to be good or do we want to be great? I teach my kids to want to be great!)
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Burrell Stein
March 15, 2022
Sorry Mike, I just don't understand your point. Are you speaking about how many will use it every month, or year, or over the lifetime of 40 to 50 years. Asking for a friend.
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Sherry Kuyt
March 15, 2022
David, I couldn’t resist coming out of retirement to express my thoughts on your article. This sounds like a worthwhile expenditure. Buildings eventually require repairs and upgrades, and a new pool would be an asset to the district and the community. But claiming there would be “no new taxes” is misleading. Extending the length of a payment arrangement adds to the total amount paid, even if the payments remain the same. People may not notice they’re paying more, but they are; the money has to come from somewhere. Again, I think the proposed improvements sound great, but supporters should be careful to portray the costs honestly.
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Couchman
March 16, 2022
Most pools located in public high schools are community pools. They are used for competitive sports like swim team, diving and water polo. They are also used for HS PE classes during the school year and in the HS sports off seasons are often used for youth swimming lessons. Learning to swim is a life long skill used long after graduation. High schools annually invest in machinery, programmable controllers and software to keep curriculum up to date for industrial arts classes. There are a lot of students who graduate and never set foot in those classrooms. As commenter Steve mentioned same can be said about expenditures for football, baseball, softball, soccer and I’ll add tennis courts. Total users might not be a great metric to buttress an argument against upgrading the nearly 50 year old pool to 21st century standards. If the bond issue passes, the new upgraded pool facilities are in the budget. If the bond issue fails there are still going to be major expenditures related to the existing pool if the school board decides to take the pool improvements out of the budget. That might include de-construction, architectural and engineering costs for the space that held the pool rather than keeping a pool that doesn’t meet current specification. Then more debate(s) on which departments within the HS will will take over the newly repurposed space.
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John Wilkens
March 17, 2022
Wow $48.5 million Dollars and no new taxes, no more money needed from my wallet, a gift from the Heavens, Thank You Thank you Thank you!!! I wish I could make this happen on my personal debt. I would need to go into school administration to figure this out...........or 2030 will chime in and let us all know how bond issues work. Cheers!!
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