At the behest of the school board two weeks ago, Mid-Prairie administrators met to discuss their facilities’ needs.

What they came back with Monday night was a list of projects totaling $19.25 million.

“At the last meeting, we were asked to discuss this issue as an administrative team,” Superintendent Mark Schneider said. “This is a starting point. This is what we came up with, and it’s obviously not the final solution. You can do all of this, none of this or more than this.”

The proposed projects include:

• A new auditorium and kitchen renovations at the high school.

• A new gym, four new classrooms, extending the commons and office areas at the middle school.

• Two kindergarten classrooms, a music room and additional restrooms at East Elementary in Kalona.

• Parking and safety improvements at West Elementary in Wellman.

• Safety and playground improvements at the Home School Education Center.

Schneider said that the district could use $4.5 million in revenue bonds from sales tax funds, $14.3 million in general obligation bonds and $1 million that is being held in trust earmarked for a new auditorium.

Schneider said that the levy for the current bonds is $2.69 per $1,000 of valuation.

“$14.3 million in general obligation bonds would keep the tax rate about the same,” he said. “We don’t have to raise the tax rate at all.”

The general obligation bonds would need to be approved by voters in an election.

“My opinion is that if you do a bond issue that doesn’t include an auditorium, it’s not going to pass,” Schneider said. “I believe there’s enough people in the district who have said that it’s fine arts’ turn, especially if we’re building a new gym on the middle school.”

Board member Jeremy Gugel agreed, saying, “I think if you do a gym at the middle school, you’re going to have outrage if there’s no auditorium at the high school.”

“The quickest you could have a bond issue election would be September,” Schneider said. “If you wanted to wait, the next possible time would be March (2021).”

Schneider explained that, before determining the needs at each school, decisions would have to be made about grade alignment.

“You can’t talk about facilities until you decide what you want to do with grade alignment,” he said. “The limiting factor is West Elementary. Because of the size of the gymnasium, there is not the seating capacity to feed three grade levels.”

The recommendation administrators made was to have preschool, third and fourth grades at West Elementary in Wellman. Kindergarten through second grade would be at East Elementary in Kalona.

With that alignment, administrators were able to determine priority projects.

“At East, there would need to be two kindergarten classrooms and restrooms in kindergarten classrooms or in conjunction with them,” Schneider said. “Then there would need to be a music room.”

The estimated cost is $1.5 million.

At the middle school, they proposed adding a new gym, four new classrooms, enlarging the commons area and extending the office area.

“The current gym is not conducive to our activities,” Schneider said. “If we construct a new gym, we can bring wrestling back to the middle school.”

The estimated cost for the middle school projects is $6 million.

“At this point we were looking at $1.5 million at East and $6 million at the middle school,” Schneider said. “Now, you’re looking at $7.5 million. You’re going to have to do a bond issue. This is when the discussion changed.

“If you’re going to pass a bond issue, you’ve got to do something in every building. You have to make sure everybody gets something.”

That led to the discussion of the high school auditorium.

Schneider estimated that adding the auditorium, along with high school kitchen and lunchroom upgrades, would cost $11 million.

“We’re using the costing figures for a 599-seat auditorium,” he said.

The parking lot work at West Elementary would be $500,000, and the playground and safety upgrades at the Home School Education Center would be $250,000.

“These are just rough numbers,” Schneider cautioned.

Board members agreed to continue discussions on the recommendations at their March 9 meeting.