GUSD to explore bond feasibility

GUSTINE The Gustine Unified School District will explore the feasibility of a bond measure to raise funds to bring aging facilities and infrastructure up to par.

School board members, after meeting with a consultant in a special meeting Thursday evening, unanimously approved the exploratory effort which could be a pre-cursor to placing a bond measure before voters as early as June of next year.

Superintendent Ron Estes said in previous board meetings that the district simply does not have the financial resources to repair deteriorating infrastructure without passing a school bond or similar measure.

Thursday, consultant Jon Isom, managing principal of Isom Advisors, outlined the general obligation bond option and laid out a process aimed at successfully promoting a bond measure in the district.

Isoms firm will conduct the feasibility study and, if the district proceeds, also provide a one-stop shop of services for the bond campaign. The consultant is only paid if a bond measure passed, he emphasized.

The district is already working to compile a list of projects that could be included in a bond measure, which Isom said was one of the first steps in the feasibility study which will include a telephone survey and community outreach.

You need to have a construction manager or architect come on board to say these are the needs, and this is what it costs. It all starts there, the consultant emphasized.

While campuses in the Gustine Unified School District are well-maintained and attractive, Isom said, a closer look would reveal deteriorating infrastructure, antiquated science labs, outdated plumbing and electrical systems, inefficient heating and cooling systems and a host of other shortcomings that need to be addressed.

While still functional, Isom explained, at some point there is an acknowledgment that you need to bring things up to the 21st Century. Twenty-first Century students need 21st Century classrooms.

The only alternative to operating the outdated campuses using Band-aids to get by, Isom added, is to fund improvement projects which bring schools up to modern standards.

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GUSD to explore bond feasibility