This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2006, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
PROVO - School officials are asking voters to endorse a tax increase so they can implement the three R's: rebuild, remodel and replace.
Take Timpanogos Elementary, for example. The pipes leak. The doors are crooked. And the lights - many of them propped up by two-by-fours bolted to support frames - are archaic.
Then there's the musky, wet-dog smell that fills the unhealthy building.
Well, a proposed $35 million bond and a $1.5 million leeway will cure all of those ills and more if voters sign off in a June 27 election.
The extra tax money would, among other projects, help Provo School District rebuild Timpanogos Elementary, remodel Provo High and replace portable classrooms at Sunset View Elementary and Centennial Middle schools. It also would pay for a new west-side grade school: Lakeview.
But Priority One is Timpanogos.
Built in 1938, the landmark building's condition would alarm most parents whose children attend state-of-the-art schools.
"We can't use the laminating machine at the same time we run the microwave," Principal Diane Bridge explains. "And we have to reboot the [computer] server every day or so.
"I'd do anything" for the bond to pass, she adds.
If it doesn't, Timpanogos students and faculty will have to make do for the foreseeable future - a fate LeAnn Smith, a facilitator at the school, hopes to avoid.
"The students deserve a more inviting place to go to school," she says.
Officials say the bond is sorely needed to upgrade Provo schools, while the leeway would help boost teacher pay.
"We don't have enough money to run the district the way the public wants us to," says Kerry Smith, district business administrator. "This [vote] is of supreme importance."
Smith and other district officials have been preaching that message to residents for two months, hoping to convert them to the prospect of paying $130 more a year in property taxes on a $200,000 home by 2009.
Former Westridge Elementary PTA President Julie Durrant sees the need for the capital improvements but remains leery of the tab to taxpayers.
"What they're asking us to do is raise taxes 20 percent, which is a huge percentage," Durrant says. "They're not just asking for a little bit."
She argues instead for several alternatives - including closing and selling Edgemont and Wasatch elementaries to help pay for upgrades elsewhere.
School board members don't downplay the financial investment. But they maintain months of planning - with input from dozens of meetings, citywide surveys and open houses - has let the public shape the bond.
"I don't feel like we are asking too much, but we are asking for something pretty serious," board member Carolyn Wright says. "We are at a crossroads, and the community has told us this is what they want."
And that, she adds, is a continued commitment to neighborhood schools, experienced teachers and stable class sizes.
While the district's troubled financial past has prevented it from pumping millions into needed improvements in previous years, Kerry Smith insists the financial demons have been put to rest.
"If these initiatives don't pass," he says, "we're going to have to have some serious study sessions with the board."