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Milton High design team gets input on work

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MILTON — Deb Hummel wants only the best for her child’s school district, she said.

But she worries now is not the time to build a brand-new high school.

“I’m really, really frightened at this point what’s happening in our community with GM,” she said. “I really think this country as a whole, we need to step back a bit. We really don’t know where the energy crisis is going.”

Hummel offered her opinion at an open house for the Milton High School design team.

The team has been working for the last eight months on design recommendations for a new high school. Thursday, it invited the public to learn about the plans and offer their feedback.

More than 40 people attended, many of them design team members and district staff.

The design team worked with Plunkett Raysich Architects and Miron Construction on preliminary design of a 354,000-square-foot building. An early cost estimate from Miron Construction put it at $67.9 million.

A plan to move the middle school into the old high school building is estimated at an additional $7.3 million, with another $2 million to upgrade and replace mechanical systems in the existing high school.

At those prices, a new building could add $1.27 per $1,000 of equalized property value to district taxes, said Dianne Meyer, district business manager. That number would increase to $1.51 in the referendum’s second, peak year, she said.

Audience comment-makers included:

-- Jim Conway. Conway believes more gifted students will take virtual classes from home in the future and said the district should plan its capacity accordingly.

-- Leslie Brissette, Milton Middle School teacher. Brissette wanted to make sure the district hired additional, quality teachers to address overcrowding as it plans for a new school.

“The quality of the instruction has to be as high a priority as the design of the new high school,” she said.

-- Steve Steinke, Milton Middle School teacher. Steinke was concerned about the design team’s plan to convert the smaller, “green” gym at the current high school building into space for district offices and the Milton, Edgerton, Clinton Alternative School. The plan would convert the current pool space into a gym, leaving it too small.

Bill Wilson, design team chairman, said the plan was the most efficient way to increase office space in the district. The gym built in the old pool area would include a full-size basketball court, he said.

-- Nicole Reese, Milton High School agriculture teacher. Reese and several others in the audience were concerned about the design team’s plan for the greenhouse and agriculture department space.

The preliminary plan would reduce the department’s space by about 1,000 square feet. It would put the greenhouse on the west side of the building, without enough light for the plants, Reese said.

The agriculture department also would like to see shop space and an animal lab in its wing, Reese said.

Scott Kramer of Plunkett Raysich Architects said the design team already is working on adjusting those plans.

The design team plans to meet one more time Tuesday before presenting its recommendations to the school board Monday, July 7.

Growing capacity

The capacity needed for a new high school in Milton is one of the biggest question marks, given the slumping housing market and impending layoffs at General Motors and other companies.

The design team presented a plan Thursday to increase student capacity in steps. The district would build its “core”—gym, cafeteria and other communal areas—to hold 1,800 students.

The rest of the high school would be built to hold 1,200 students, with each teacher receiving his or her own classroom. As space tightens, teachers would begin sharing class space and the capacity could increase to 1,500.

If enrollment increased even more, the district could add classroom space on the wings of the building to increase capacity to 1,800.

How much will it cost?

Dianne Meyer, district business manager, presented preliminary estimates of how much a new high school could cost district taxpayers, based on $80 million to build a new high school and move the middle school into the old high school building.

If borrowing occurs in 2009, the district’s mil rate could increase $1.27 per $1,000 of equalized value that year, Meyer said. The mil rate for the referendum would peak in 2010 at $1.51 and continue to drop in the remaining 18 years of the payback period.

But the new building also would require increased operational costs of about $1.4 million, resulting in another $0.29 per $1,000 in property value, Meyer said. The additional operating costs would require a separate referendum question.

If both referendums passed, it would mean an additional $156 in taxes on a $100,000 home in 2009 and $180 in 2010.