Mount Vernon residents approved a $108 million bond referendum on Tuesday to dramatically upgrade the city”™s schools.
The new debt will finance renovations and upgrades at 15 schools and the administration building. The budget includes $90.5 million for fixing buildings and adding features, $8.7 million for athletic fields, $8 million for wiring and ventilation, and $1.1 million for asbestos removal.
Kenneth R. Hamilton, superintendent of the Mount Vernon City School District, has described the bond issue as necessary for building a school system that will prepare students for colleges and careers and for making a difference where they live.
“This is an indication of the district”™s readiness to move forward and change conditions that have plagued the community for so long,” Hamilton said. “This is really a social justice issue.”
He said Mount Vernon will be a very different place, cosmetically and academically, when construction is finished by 2020.
The budget classifies about $41 million as “academic vision” projects. Elementary schools, for example, will be reconfigured for a pre-kindergarten program. Three schools will be adapted for specialty high school programs: science, technology, engineering, arts and math at A.B. Davis (now a middle school); performing arts at Thornton High School; and career and technical education at Mount Vernon High School.
The referendum was approved by more than three to one. Unofficial results this morning for 25 of 27 precincts was 2,218 to 652. The total so far represents about 8 percent of the eligible voters.
Peter Gisolfi Associates in Hastings-on-Hudson has been chosen as the architect.
State aid will cover about $81 million of the debt and city taxpayers will be responsible for $27 million. The additional property tax on a house worth $315,000 will average about $84 a year for twenty years.
The school district has about 8,500 students. It is the largest employer in Mount Vernon, with about 1,322 full-time and 323 part-time employees. Its facilities, on average, are more than 65 years old.
