Litchfield City Council conducted its first work session to discuss finite details of projects and city goals with city staff Jan. 22.
City Administrator Dave Cziok proposed the work sessions as a way for the council to get up to speed on issues and projects going on in the city.
At the work session, Litchfield Public Schools Superintendent Beckie Simenson presented an update on the district’s plan for the possibility of a referendum and bond in fall 2019. Simenson said the district might ask voters for both an operating referendum and a bond referendum based on what the community can afford.
“So we have a list of the defined needs or what we are going to do moving forward,” Simenson said. “We need to do a good job of finding what our education needs are – our operational sides are going to trump a bond referendum because we need additional funding to support our students.”
Currently, Litchfield Public Schools receives $724 per pupil from the levy in place. Simenson said that out of 330 school districts, Litchfield is at the bottom end at number 285 in operational funding received per pupil.
Simenson said the school hosted some listening sessions to find the needs of the district.
“We also wanted to invite a consultant to survey our community and wanted someone to help us through this process because we needed someone who had a broader picture and had done this [before],” Simenson said. “Then we wanted to meet with community members on wellness [center] ideas.”
The district hired a consultant, Pat Overom, from ICS Consulting Inc. out of Blaine, Minnesota. Overom met with more than 15 community members twice in December to identify the community’s needs. Simenson said staff members from ICS came in to survey the district’s building sites.
“They wanted to identify what the needs are at Lake Ripley Elementary, the middle school and the high school,” Simenson said.
The district sent out about 55 letters after ICS Consulting conducted its walkthrough of the buildings to get community members on a task force dedicated to identifying the district’s needs. Simenson said 24 people agreed to be a part of the task force.
“[The task force] is a cross section of our Litchfield stakeholders,” Simenson said.
Simenson said the district is currently in the study phase of developing the referendum.
“The task force has been named and there are 24 community members, but then, we also have some representation from each one of the schools,” Simenson said. “So it will be a community task force of between 35-40 members.”
The first meeting of the task force will be Wednesday, Feb. 13. The district plans to host six to seven meetings that will last two hours each. The outline and plan will be taken to school board members for their review and approval. Simenson said these meetings will serve to find out how much the community can take on in additional tax-levy costs.
“We don’t want to over tax our taxpayers, but we want to provide something to have some educational programs for our kiddos,” Simenson said. “Plus, we can have our facilities that are safe and updated for our kiddos as well. This task force will bring this articulated recommendation to the actual school board and say, ‘We would like you to approve these findings from all of [the task force] meetings.’”
The task force will work on the report phase between March and April, which then will be reviewed by district administrative staff and the school board. Once those recommendations are finalized, the board will consider them from April through June, concluding with a formal presentation to the board from the task force. From July through August after the consideration phase, ICS will work with the district to submit the bond and operating levy forms, publish public notices and file the questions for the 2019 election.
After these phases are completed, the district will conduct informational campaigns and host public meetings.
