District 3 to issue bonds for renovations

Officials in Fox River Grove Elementary District 3 plan to issue bonds typically used to cover daily expenses to renovate the district's elementary school.

The District 3 school board has authorized the district to issue up to $1.25 million in working cash bonds to renovate Algonquin Road School, Superintendent Tim Mahaffy said.

The renovations include replacing a leaky roof, floor tiles containing asbestos, windows and doors at the building, which dates to 1964 and underwent its most recent renovation in 1989, the superintendent said.

"It is, for lack of a better word, an indoor water park," Mahaffy said. "Every time it rained, we had to cover up computers ... we had to move trash cans so we could catch the water."

School districts usually issue working cash bonds to create a cash reserve they can use to cover day-to-day expenses. But state law allows districts to transfer working cash dollars into other funds to cover any expenses normally paid for out of those funds, according to the Illinois State Board of Education.

District 3 officials plan to transfer the proceeds from selling working cash bonds into the district's general fund to pay for the renovations.

"We don't have a capital fund," Mahaffy said. "There's not a million extra dollars in (the general fund) to pay (for the work)."

The district will pay Control Technology and Solutions of Chicago roughly $1.1 million to complete the work.

In addition to the more than $1 million in bonds, which are scheduled to be paid back over 13 years, District 3 taxpayers will be on the hook for an estimated $260,000 in interest, according to Mahaffy.

Working cash bonds do not require voter approval unless 10 percent of registered voters ask for a referendum on the bond sale.

Work on the school started this week and is scheduled to be mostly done by the start of the 2009-10 school year, although some of the work on the windows will extend into the fall.