Voters In Broken Arrow School District Prepare For $52 Million Bond Vote

People living within the Broken Arrow Public School district will have the chance to vote on a $52 million bond that will go toward building a new transportation facility, some school maintenance and upgrading the technology.

The bond is broken into four parts so voters can decide on them individually.

Proposition 1 is for $48 million that would upgrade the district’s technology, like replacing roofs and HVAC units, and constructing a building for the buses.

"It is an investment in the future of our students here,” said Tara Thompson, the Chief Communications Officer for Broken Arrow Public Schools. “We can start accessing some of these bond dollars, again it's on a sliding scale, we don't get all of the money upfront, but we can begin accessing those bond dollars about January, so we can start making some improvements pretty immediately."

Another big focus is school security, including building a perimeter fence around the high school.

Proposition 2 is for buying $4 million worth of buses.

The district says this bond won’t raise taxes but will continue one that’s already in place.

"The way we're able to keep the taxing rate flat is as old bonds expire, we're just replacing them with these new bonds,” said Thompson. “So the tax rate stays the same. We're not asking for an increase, but there is the chance that if it doesn't pass that you could see a dip in your property taxes, we're talking very small, maybe $3-4 a month depending on how much your property is worth."

Propositions 3 and 4 aren’t new, they were passed as part of the previous bond in 2015.

The district says voters have the chance to make some changes to the previous plans.

If voters decide against Propositions 3 and 4, the projects will go on as scheduled.

If Propositions 1 and 2 fail, Thompson says the district won’t have the money it needs to upgrade the schools.

"If they don't pass, then what we're looking at is possible class sizes going up as we don't have any place to put students, we're looking at delaying some of the repairs we need to make to roofs and replacing HVAC units, those sorts of things,” said Thompson.

She hopes people will do their research and get out and vote.

"We have a lot of information out there on our website, as far as we break it down question by question, we have a sample ballot out there so they can read exactly what they'll be voting on when they show up to the polling place,” said Thompson.

The vote will be on Nov. 14th.

Voters who live in both Wagoner County and Tulsa County will be able to vote, as long as they live within the school district boundaries.

The district has more information about what is on the bond issue HERE