The Husky Den News Spring 2010
by George Griffith
March 29, 2010
Facility Repairs
and Upgrades Planned
Northern Valley has been awarded $450,000 in interest free bonds
called Qualified Zone Academy Bonds or QZAB's. These funds will be
paid back out of the schools capital outlay fund and provide the
district the opportunity to make some much needed repairs and
updates to our facilities. One of the major upgrades will be to the
heating and cooling system in the high school and elementary
school. The boilers in both these buildings are well beyond their
life expectancy and have had to be repaired a few times this past
winter and are not expected to last another school year. We also
will need to do some structural repairs to the elementary school
gym floor, the library floor in Long Island, and the south wall of
the high school gym. The lighting in the high school gym will be
replaced with brighter and more energy efficient lighting which
will pay for itself in five years from the energy savings. We will
also be repairing areas of our sidewalks that need to be replaced.
Other items that are being looked at for repair or replacement are
the high school gym floor and some of our busses that are getting
to the end of their life span. We plan to have many of these items
addressed this summer and plan to have a couple community workdays
to help tear out the elementary gym floor in Almena and move books
out of the library in Long Island.
Information on Capital Outlay funds: The money that will
be used to pay back the bonds will come from Northern Valley's
Capital Outlay fund. Capital Outlay funds can only be used for
building equipment, facilities and facility repairs. We currently
have a Capital Outlay mill levy of 5.00 mills which is 3.00 mills
below what we are permitted to have without an election. We WILL
NOT have to increase this mill levy to pay back these bonds and
will be able to address the needed repairs to our facilities.
