By Casey Jarmes | The News-Review
SIGOURNEY – During the Jan. 14 meeting of the Sigourney School Board, the board spoke with Pat Westby from SitelogIQ, the company that oversaw the district’s $10,000,000 bond referendum for planned high school infrastructure updates, which failed to pass in November. The bond received 401 YES votes to 365 NO votes, reaching 52.35% approval, short of the 60% required to pass.
Westby stated that SitelogIQ wanted to continue to partner with the district and discussed several options for getting information on why the bond failed, like sending out a post-referendum survey or holding listening sessions open to the public. He stated this would give them information like why people didn’t vote for the bond, what NO voters liked about the project, what YES voters disliked, how much voters would like them to scale back tor project, and how they felt about the tax impact. Board member Steven Seeley asked about the associated costs. Westby stated he couldn’t say how much a survey would cost, but that they school wouldn’t have to pay anything, if they signed a new contract with SitelogIQ. Board member Tim Bruns stated information would be great, but that he didn’t now if that outweighed the cost.
Board member Adam Clark stated that they did meetings, listening sessions and surveys, and that they had overwhelming support from people who attended. He stated that they needed to reach out to the people who didn’t come. Clark stated they would receive overwhelming support like before if they had listening sessions, and needed to contact people who don’t have kids attending the district but would still be required to pay the tax increase.
High School Principal Shannon Webb agreed with this and noted that she was married to a farmer. She stated farmers were they type of people they needed to get to, but that she didn’t know how. Westby stated they needed to get to them so they can find out why farmers didn’t support the bond. Webb stated it was because of the tax increase. Clark stated they didn’t need a survey to know that. Seeley stated that people he had spoken to, including ones with kids in the school, wanted the improvements, but didn’t want the extra taxes. Westby stated that, if they didn’t need the survey, they didn’t need to do it, and that the question then became what they should do about the tax impact. He noted that, every year the school updates don’t happen, costs will go up. He asked if there was a tax increase level that the public would support.
Superintendent Kevin Hatfield stated that the superintendent qualities survey they had sent out contained some questions about the bond and that almost everyone said they needed to improve their facilities. He stated he had no doubt the failure was about taxes and that they didn’t calculate enough what people were willing to tolerate to fix the school’s problems. Clark stated that he didn’t know what they could take out of the referendum, because they weren’t asking for “fluff and cool things,” instead focussing on repairing what they already had. Hatfield stated that some people he’d spoke to had asked if they had considered adding in “shiny” things to mobilize more people into voting for the referendum. He stated that they had considered that, but decided based on feedback to focus on the most practical things that needed to be fixed. Clark stated that they needed to fix the basic infrastructure things first, because otherwise, they would have to tear them out after installing new features. Westby stated that, if they removed things to reduce the project’s scope, the No voters would say that they didn’t need those things in the first place.
Board member Mike Bensmiller stated that people didn’t understand the referendum. He stated that he had spoken to two people at the Sale Barn who said that they would have voted for the referendum, if they had been told what the school was going to spend the money on. Bensmiller asked if those people had been living under a rock. He stated that they were in favor of the referendum, after he spent time talking to them about it. Webb stated that a lot of those people don’t use the internet and throw away any fliers they get. Hatfield stated that he had spoken to farmers at Farm Bureau, but that only eight people had been there. He brought up the idea of maybe Zooming with farmers to get the message out. Bensmiller noted that the Farm Bureau meeting was mostly younger guys.
Clark asked if the referendum would have done better if it had been in a different year. Seeley noted that its possible there were people there who wouldn’t have voted on a school election normally, but voted No because they were there anyway. Westby stated that non-major election years, like 2025 or 2027, typically have lower turnout, but more support.
Business Manager Jessica Meier noted that most of the community voted Yes, meaning there was support for the project. Board member Adam Sellers stated that most people in Sigourney voted Yes, but that most people in the rural surrounding townships voted No. Hatfield stated that they received 65% approval from residential votes, but only 33% from agricultural voters.
Westby stated that they could do fliers or meetings, but that it really comes down to having face-face meetings with people. He stated that surveys could ask what people were confused on and what they wanted more information on. Clark stated that they put out a lot of information about taxes, probably too much. Bruns stated that he had attended an in-depth meeting on the referendum’s tax impact, which had answered questions, but been too long and featured too much information.
Clark asked if they wanted to put this discussion on hold until they hired a new superintendent. Bruns and Seeley agreed it was a good idea to pump the breaks, with Bruns asking to pick this conversation up again in six months or a year. Westby pushed back on this, saying that, if they put things on hold for a year, that would push the vote to 2027 and the project start to 2029. Clark asked when they needed to have their ducks in a row to get on the ballot in November. Westby said August. Clark stated that gave them time. Seeley stated that they could move forward, regardless of the new superintendent. Clark stated that the board would be able to be as involved as Hatfield was and that they needed a superintendent. Bensmiller stated they would know more about a superintendent in a month. Hatfield stated that the candidates he had spoken to would be good for handling the infrastructure project. Westby stated there was enough interest for SitelogIQ to contact the school after the meeting about arranging another contract.
Also at the Wednesday meeting, Hatfield stated that six people had applied for the superintendent position, although one had pulled out. He stated that two candidates matched the board’s vision and that he didn’t believe they would find more qualified candidates. Both of these candidates would be a shared superintendent with another school. Hatfield stated that the other five candidates were good, but none had run a school before, which he felt was important for a superintendent. The district will interview the two candidates on the 26th, with them meeting with five groups: parents, students, the school board, teachers, and admin. Bruns asked if they could ask the candidates about the bond referendum. Hatfield said they could, but that they had to ask the same questions to the different candidates and that they didn’t want to ask too many questions.
Hatfield stated that the district had received a $48,000 grant for STEM. STEM/Work Based Learning Instructor Jenny Bell stated that the grant would go towards improving what they had already started, funding things like getting new drones and robotics, helping with the Savage Advantage program, professional development, Industry Recognized Credentials, and making swag for businesses partnered with the school, which students could sell to bring money into the program. Seeley asked if they were interested in starting a robotics team, like the one Pekin has. Webb stated that she did a survey a few years back that showed eSports was more popular among students than robotics, leading them to start that team instead, but that she thought a robotics team could work.
The board approved a contract with Thunder Country Radio to place a 13 or 14 foot wide digital display to be used for advertising and as a score board in the high school gym. Hatfield explained that Thunder Country would find and price out the display, then give the district $14-16,000 to purchase it, and that Sigourney would own the board. He stated that Thunder Country had guaranteed $6,000 in advertising revenue. The display will go on the southwest part of the western wall. Hatfield stated that they didn’t want it too close to the basketball hoop, noting that Pekin had a display right by the hoop and that the brightness causes problems.
Meier gave the board an overview of the district’s finances, explaining that, in the last 15 years, Sigourney has gone from having 545 residential students to 489, a net loss of 56 students. However, Sigourney had made this up through students from other communities open-enrolling into the district. In the past five years, Sigourney has trended upward to 35 more students open enrolling in vs out, resulting in the district trending up nine students in five years. Hatfield stressed that they needed enrollment growth for the district to stay stable. The district currently receives $7,988 in per-student funding from the state. Hatfield stated that he did not think that would increase by much this year, stating he had heard rumors of a 1% State Supplemental Aid (SSA) increase, compared to the cost of living going up 4%.
Meier showed projections for how the school’s finances would be with a 0% and 1% SSA increases, stating that 1% was not enough to maintain what they have. She stated that they needed at least a 2% increase, or they would be forced to use a budget guarantee, raising property taxes so they can match last year’s funding for one year. Hatfield stated that the district’s financials were solid, but that the tax rate would likely have to go up in the future for the district to make ends meet.
Elementary Principal Deanna Spence noted that ISASP standards were changing, meaning Sigourney’s scores will not be comparable between this year and the next. She stated that only 14 children had been signed up for preschool and that she didn’t think they would need a second section, having a five-day section for all the children instead of hiring another staff member.
