1958 Building Renovations and Roofing Maintenance Are the Focus of April 6th Badger Referendum
1958 Building Renovations and Roofing Maintenance Are the Focus of April 6th Badger Referendum
By: Dr. James Gottinger, District Administrator, Lake Geneva Schools
On April 6, 2021, the Lake Geneva Joint #1 District and the Badger High School District will ask the citizens of our communities to approve three referenda questions. Those questions are:
(1) Should the Lake Geneva Jt. #1 District exceed the state imposed revenue limit by $750,000 recurring beginning in 2021-2022?
(2) Should the Badger District exceed the state imposed revenue limit by $750,000 recurring beginning in 2021-2022?
(3) Should the Badger District approve $6,000,000 for renovations to the 1958 facility and capital maintenance projects?
All three of these questions can be passed with No Increase In Tax Rate!
This is a second in a series of articles explaining the reasons our school districts are seeking citizens’ approval for the upcoming referendum. This article will focus on the request for $6,000,000 for renovations and major capital projects at Badger.
In 1958 Dwight Eisenhower was President, Wham-O introduced the hula hoop, the Milwaukee Braves lost the World Series to the New York Yankees in seven games and Badger High School was built and opened for the first time! Many things have changed since then, but some things remain the same at Badger. It is time to renovate and update those facilities. In addition, the roofs at Badger are in need of repair as they head into their third decade of service.
The 1958 building includes the current cafeteria, kitchen, main entry and restrooms in the main entry and cafeteria area, the main gym floor and bleachers, and some upgrades to some of our technical education classrooms.
Many of these upgrades address safety and ADA concerns in this, the oldest, segment of our facility. The cafeteria upgrade includes a new kitchen and freezer and storage areas that are currently inadequate to best provide for the needs of our students. The restroom renovations will help to make us ADA compliant and address adequate sanitation needs for our students, staff and community members who access our buildings every day.
The 1958 bleachers and gym floor are in dire need of renovation. Our bleachers have become an extreme safety hazard with the lack of aisles, handrails and other safety and comfort items that up-to-date facilities feature. Since this is our primary competition gym, the seating is used by the public constantly. Anyone with any accessibility issue cannot be seated beyond the first row and even those who are more mobile need to proceed with extreme caution.
The original 1958 gym floor has been repaired many times and has served us well with over 60 years of events, practices and gym class use, but can no longer be repaired. It has a number of dead spots and now needs to be replaced with a new floor which we all hope will give us the same service time.
We have a number of miscellaneous items that will be addressed if this referendum question is passed. They include an upgrade of our current technology infrastructure, the completion of our energy-efficient LED lighting, upgrade our auditorium sound and lighting systems, potential safety issues with our baseball field lights and improvements to our technology education classrooms which are in the 1958 portion of Badger.
The total cost of the above projects comes in at four million dollars.
Replacing the 1999 roofs is the other main objective of this referendum question. Once again, it is just time that we address this issue and secure our building roofs at Badger for another twenty-plus years. We have had great service from our current roofs, but we are currently having relatively minor issues and with the passage of this referendum question we can prevent any major issues in the future.
The total cost of the roofing repairs and replacement comes in at two million dollars.
The Badger Board and administration believe that we are serving as good stewards of our facilities by addressing these needs at this time. Because we have just retired a large amount of debt, we are able to complete all these projects with No Tax Rate Increase to our citizens.
Please Vote on April 6, 2021!