Getting Facts on Geneva Schools Superintendent Explains $80 Million Referendum

By Mark Foster Daily Herald Correspondent

Andrea Orwig was getting an education Thursday at Coultrap Elementary School.

Orwig and her family moved to Geneva from Ohio about two years ago, and are now confronted with an $80 million school building bond referendum question.

With two daughters attending Geneva schools, Orwig said she is inclined to support the referendum, but wanted to know more about the proposal.

“I want to make sure I understand the facts,” Orwig said, after an informational forum on the referendum at Coultrap.

With few people in attendance, and even fewer asking questions, Orwig found herself in a conversation with Superintendent Kent Mutchler and Assistant Superintendent Rebecca Allard.

How, Orwig wanted to know, could the district take on such a sizeable debt and yet maintain the current tax rate of about 80 cents per $100 of assessed valuation, as Mutchler and Allard were asserting?

The answer, Allard said, is that the district’s tax base continues to grow, and that the district is retiring and restructuring some of its older bond debt.

Geneva voters will go to the polls April 17 to decide the referendum question, which is designed to fund construction of two new elementary schools and to make physical and technological improvements to existing school buildings.

School officials have emphasized that the referendum is the first phase in a long-term plan that eventually will see an expansion of Geneva High School.

Coultrap School would be replaced by one of the new elementary schools. The original, historic portion of Coultrap, fronting Peyton Street, would become home for the school district’s administration, while other portions of the school would be razed to make way for future high school expansion.

The room where Thursday’s forum was held would fall to the wrecking ball.

“I’ve never seen a building this nice torn down,” Orwig said.

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