Davis County voters Tuesday passed a $190 million bond for the Davis School District, with almost 90 percent of voters approving the action.
This was the largest-ever school bond in the county, but it also had the highest-ever bond approval rating — 9,567 voting yes and only 1,107 voting no for an 89.6 percent approval rating.
The voting also had a very low turnout, with only 7.56 percent of the 141,000 registered voters going to the polls.
The bond will require no increase in current tax rates, being funded by a mixture of the sale of general obligation bonds and the current revenues. These general obligation bonds will be 15-year bonds issued over the next eight years.
Major projects to be financed by the bonds include the construction of a new junior high in West Point, a new high school in Syracuse, the total rebuilding of Kaysville's Davis High School (originally built in 1914), a complete refurbishing of the 61-year-old North Davis Junior high School in Clearfield and the construction of three new elementary schools, one in West Farmington and others in the south and west central areas of the county.
In total, the bond election relates to 176 separate projects, affecting every school and community in the district.
Current district enrollment is 59,000 students and that is projected to grow to 64,000 by 2007 and 84,000 by the year 2020.
The bonding may also allow the district to decrease its number of portable classrooms.
Orchard Elementary School had one of its lowest voter turnouts ever, with less than 200 total voters having come to the polls within an hour of closing time Tuesday.
The low voter turnout was probably attributable to the state's fixation on the Olympic Games. School district officials said they did everything possible to inform the public about it.
"It's probably the most thorough effort at informing the public as any bond election that I've ever seen," Darrell White, Davis School District Superintendent said.
While the $190 million bond is more than double the district's previous bond in 1997, inflation and the high costs of secondary schools are the major differences for the increased costs.