By Logan Wells, News Director | Logan@kymnradio.net
The Northfield School Board meetings tonight for a busy meeting. The board will first hear an update regarding the Budget Reduction. Then, the board will vote to approve the Operating Capital and Long-Term Facilities Maintenance Budget, which they had previously heard a report on at their last meeting. The budget works on standard maintenance projects throughout the school district, like resurfacing the Middle School Pool and upgrades to the Bridgewater Elementary Entrance.
Afterward, the board is set to approve the first round of Bonds for the construction of the High School. The project is expected to cost approximately $120 million and consists of renovations, expansions, and demolitions of parts of the high school. The school district will use bonds to fund the project, to reduce the cost of interest on the bonds, and the district will stagger when the bonds are sold. With the first bond sale today and a second round of sales expected in the spring of 2027. By staggering the bond sale, the district will save having to pay the interest on the bonds for several years. Here’s the district Director of Finance Val Mertesdorf:
Download two of the reports from meeting here:
“And so again, that is an intentional strategy so that we don’t have a large pool of money earning interest unnecessarily because there’s arbitrage calculations and things that we aren’t allowed to exceed a certain amount, and it results in less interest being paid on the bonds over the life of that term.” – Northfield Public Schools Director of Finance Val Mertesdorf at the 11/25/2024 School Board Meeting (12/4)
The board will then vote to approve a change order of procedures to the high school project. The change order would give the project management team the power to make changes to the project of less than $175,000. However, all changes have to be reported to the board by the next meeting.
If you are interested in attending the school board meeting, the meetings are held in the District Office Board Room; use Door #2 located on the north side of the District Office on 2nd Street West. The meetings are also streamed live on Zoom; you can find the link to the video in the agenda at Northfieldschools.org, recordings of the meetings are also posted on the district’s YouTube page.
The meeting tonight starts at 6pm.
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