Santiam Canyon schools asking for $17.9 million bond to replace high and middle school

School bonds have become common in Oregon. 

As student populations grow, facilities age and state funding lags behind growth, school districts have turned to bond measures to pay for projects.

One school district is still trying to pass its first bond.

Voters in Santiam Canyon School District are being asked to approve a $17.9 million school bond to replace the school district’s middle and high school building and to build a new auxiliary gym and a cafeteria for the elementary school in the May 21 election.

The district, which includes students from Mill City, Gates, Detroit and Idanha, has never had a school bond since its formation in 1956.

Voters in nearby school districts including Cascade, Jefferson, Mt. Angel, North Marion, North Santiam, Salem-Keizer, Silver Falls and Woodburn have voted to approve school bonds in recent years.

In Salem-Keizer, voters approved a $619 million bond in 2018.

“It’s hard to tell on things like this, but I feel really good about the plan we’ve put forward to the community,” Santiam Canyon superintendent Todd Miller said.

If the bonds are approved by voters, residents would pay $2.45 per $1,000 of assessed property value, approximately $245 per year for a house valued at $100,000. The bond would run for 25 years.

The consolidation of schools in the Santiam Canyon district combined with aging buildings past their useful life and a growing population have made a bond measure necessary for the district.

If the bond measure passes, construction would start on the new buildings in the fall of 2019 and students would start school there in fall 2020.

“It’s a pretty aggressive timeline, but one we think is actually doable,” Miller said.

For much of its existence, the school district didn’t need to ask voters for bonds to make improvements.

“We have a very nice auditorium, which has classrooms and the cafeteria,” school board president Rich Moore said. “That was built in that 69-70 school year, and that was all built with timber money.

“And when they built the elementary we have, that was built with timber money.”   

For much of Oregon's history, timber was taxed through the property tax system, and the value of the timber harvested remained in the taxing district, benefiting rural schools like those in Mill City. 

In 2003, the timber revenue was moved to the State School Fund and all schools get a share based on enrollment. 

The Santiam Canyon district has found ways to improve the current buildings on its campus in Mill City in recent years without bond money.

In the past few years, Santiam Elementary School has received improvements including a modular building to add two classrooms, a new roof and new flooring, a fire alarm system with fire suppression updates and security upgrades including new cameras and locked doors.

Some of the current buildings on the Mill City campus would remain under the proposed bond, including the current gym, auditorium and CTE buildings.

Work is underway at Santiam High School's gymnasium

The high school gym was remodeled through a state grant of $1.5 million in 2016 and the auditorium received a $1.4 million grant from Oregon Business Development.  

An early childhood center is scheduled to open in the fall funded by $500,000 in donations from five foundations.

Three new buildings for the high and middle schools would be built on the north end of the current campus. The old Mill City High School was on the north end of the campus and demolished when the current school was built.

For many years, the elementary school in Gates remained – students from Mill City went to elementary school in Gates – and even when Detroit’s high school closed in the 1990s and its students came to Santiam, the elementary school in Detroit remained.

But when the elementary schools in Gates and Detroit were closed and their students brought to the Mill City campus, the middle school building was converted to an elementary school, and the middle school students were combined in the high school building.

Of the three proposed buildings, one would be dedicated to the high school, one would be dedicated for the middle school and one would be split between the levels.

The current building has 12 classrooms and the new buildings could have 19 to 21 classrooms, depending on the chosen layout.

Additionally, sixth-grade classes would be moved to the middle school from the elementary school and free up space for future projected growth.

The last time the Santiam Canyon district put a bond measure to voters was 2008 when it asked for $14.5 million. It failed 61 percent to 38 percent.

“There wasn’t a lot of trust going on at that time, and that really showed in the voting,” Moore said.

Construction of each of the three new classroom buildings for the school is estimated at $2.8 million, and they would be rated for 50 years.

Demolition of the current school building is estimated at $750,000.

Also with the bond money, an auxiliary gymnasium would be constructed on the current campus in Mill City in the location of the current office and classrooms on the south side of the campus along Evergreen Street, though that wouldn’t happen until later in 2020.

And an outside play area – including a basketball court – would be constructed in the middle of the campus.

The Santiam Canyon School District was formed in 1956 by combining schools in Mill City and Gates.

The current junior and senior high school classroom buildings were built in 1956 after a mill levy of $206,000 was passed by voters.

The district’s current enrollment is 580. Estimates are the school district’s enrollment will increase to between 716 to 852 by 2030.

Miller said over the past few years the district grew by 40 students, and it’s grown more recently.

“Just in the past two months or so, we’ve grown by another 13 students,” Miller said. “It’s a great problem to have, but it’s becoming a problem. We had to add a temporary modular room behind the gym before this school year.”

The area proposed to become a cafeteria for the elementary school is a little-used outdoor play area.

The auditorium at the high school also is the cafeteria for both schools, and currently the elementary school students walk across Cedar Street – as early as 10:30 a.m. – for lunch each day.

If voters do not pass the school district bond, the district will deplete its saved facility funds to replace the roof over the existing classroom buildings and overcrowding will become a large issue in both buildings.

In the past six years, the annual maintenance budget for the high and middle school building in Mill City has increased dramatically as the buildings have aged.

“We think we’re on the right track,” Moore said. “We sure have a lot of good people up here who are really working hard at it. They’re very supportive.”

Bill Poehler covers Silverton, Stayton, the Santiam Canyonand Marion County. To support his work, subscribe to the Statesman Journal. He can be reached at  bpoehler@StatesmanJournal.com or Twitter.com/bpoehler