Land for school to be ‘fair price’

Additional meetings set for voters to ask questions

Staff report
The CEO of Home State Bank is urging patience as the process of acquiring the land for a proposed new high school and regional career academy plays out.

Sid Jones said that Mike and Kathy Bravard have agreed “from the very beginning” to make about 80 acres of land just west of AAI available to the Greene County Community School District for the project.

Voters will be heading to the polls in little more than two weeks to decide on the district’s $21.48 million bond referendum.

The Bravards want to trade their family farmland near AAI for farmland elsewhere through a process known as a 1031 Exchange, Jones said.

Three things will have to happen: The value of the land has to be set, an exchange property has to be identified and the value of that property has to be set.

Jones likened the process to trading in a used car.

The actual purchase price of the Bravard land will depend on final negotiations during the exchange transaction, according to Jones.

“The value,” he vouched, “is a fraction of what other people have expressed publicly.”

The district’s proposed building project has a total price tag of $35.48 million, which includes the purchase of the land, Jones said.

The cost to acquire the land isn’t in the $21.48 million bonded amount being put before voters on April 3, meaning the Bravards’ land will be acquired with money generated by the physical plant and equipment levy and a 1-cent sales tax — both of which were already approved by district voters.

The district has earmarked $4.5 million in PPEL and SAVE funds for the project.

The Bravards will plant and harvest that land as usual this year, Jones said.

An exchange, he said, is often done to avoid paying capital gains tax.

In other developments, Superintendent Tim Christensen on Friday provided a cost breakdown for the entire project:
 

New high school: $12.5 million
 

Regional academy: $5 million
 

Performing arts center: $2.85 million
 

Gym: $3.75 million
 

Renovations to existing high school (to make way for middle school students and district administration): $1.7 million
 

New site and site development: $6.1 million
 

Owner costs (design, furnishings, fees, insurance, testing): $3.58 million

The pro-bond committee — Our Kids, Our Future-Greene County — has scheduled an additional series of community meetings for Tuesday at the Greene County Community Center.

Half-hour presentations with an opportunity for questions will be given at 10 a.m. and noon, and again at 2 and 6 p.m.

Yard signs, buttons, posters and handouts will be available for distribution at the community center during the presentation times.

If approved April 3 by 60 percent of district voters, the bond will cost the owner of a home valued at $100,000 an estimated $11.42 per month in new taxes after rollbacks and homestead credits.

Owners of farmland will pay about $2.78 per acre in new taxes, according to district estimates.

The new high school would be ready for the 2020-21 school year.

The regional career academy would be equipped and staffed by Iowa Central Community College, which would offer training to area students in precision agriculture, computer software, advanced manufacturing and the culinary arts.

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