Look out! Look out! On May 6th, you, and the community, are voting for an upcoming bond that has the chance to improve all buildings and athletic facilities.
This year, taxes for the community were set to decrease, however, the school is encouraging residents to reconsider and choose to continue investing this money into Northview Public Schools. Voting for this bond means that the community will continue to pay the same amount of money in taxes each year, generating more funds for the district’s amenities.
Director of finance and operations Julie Bylsma digs deeper into the details on timelines of bonds and how they identify the time frames on when a bond is needed.
“What happens is we have a strategic plan that identifies those time frames, and there was one in 2020 and now again in 2025. What happens is as we repay our debt, the amount of money that we need to raise through taxes goes down and so the mills that we levy decrease,” Bylsma said. “We have an opportunity to keep those mills level, same rate of tax for the homeowners and we get a pot of money, in this case 74.6 million.”
Blysma was pleased with the last round of renovations which improved several different schools in the district.
“So in the 2020 bond, we focused on the interiors of our elementary building and the middle schools. We renovated classroom spaces, doing carpet, paint, lighting, furniture, and we added some secure entries,” Bylsma said.
This time around, the money will be allocated to different areas and buildings in order to improve the community spaces as a whole.
“Now our focus is shifting to some things that we weren’t able to accomplish back then. One of those being the separation of gyms and cafeterias in the elementary levels,” Blysma said. “We didn’t have enough funding for that last time, so we are lucky to include them in the project this go round. We are going back to the high school because we didn’t have as much [money] devoted to the high school in 2020.[We are] looking to renovate the PAC side of the building and do some outdoor spaces, athletics spaces, stadium.”
Superintendent Christina Hinds urges community members to attend informative sessions in order to learn more about the bond and address their concerns.
“We have two informational meetings, one will be on Thursday March 20th, at 6pm, and then we’re going to have another community meeting on Tuesday, April 20th at 5pm. Both of those meetings will happen here (administrative building) in our boardroom,” Hinds said, “That’ll be an opportunity for any community members, students, residents, anybody to come in and ask questions.”
While there is information on Northview’s website, Hinds still believes these face-to-face meetings will be beneficial to the community.
“There’s lots of information online, but that’s not the same as asking questions. Some people look at the outlines where projects are proposed right now, and they wonder, ‘oh my space is going to be taken away or oh that doesn’t look like it’s making it any bigger,’ but those are the things that we do after the bond passes,” Hinds said. “To the community members, we haven’t planned the project yet. These are just proposed projects that we really want to do badly.”
Hinds also encourages 18+ students to have a voice in the bond. Students must schedule their vote before May 6th.
“I wonder about our 18 year old students and want to know if they are registered and prepared to vote in May because every single vote counts. We have had bonds where it’s very, very close,” Hinds said, “In 2012, there were two bonds and one of them failed by just a couple of votes. Then they came back a little bit later and it was for the pool, and then it did pass the second time around.”
Hinds encourages voters to consider the students when placing their votes.
“We have really worked to center the bond around our vision, that is, inspiring all students to achieve their individual best, and our theme is supporting students, connecting community, and then future focused,” Hinds said, “Everything we’ve done has those elements incorporated. This isn’t a project for adults. It’s all about the students and making those opportunities possible for them. And then just how thankful we are again for this community. I can’t stress it enough, the involvement, the positivity that we receive, it’s pretty amazing.”
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