School Board Chair: This Will Be In Front Of The Voters Again

ST. CLOUD - Leaders in the St. Cloud area school district are scratching their heads today (Wednesday), after voters turned down a $167 million bond referendum.

School Board Chair Dennis Whipple was on WJON this (Wednesday) morning. He says surveys conducted before the vote showed support.

We did work around the price, the total of $167 million. There was support for it, and 58 percent supported.

However, after yesterday's vote, 53 percent voted "no" and 47 percent voted "yes". Whipple says open enrollment in some of the outlying precincts hurt their cause.

It is tough on the outer skirts of our community when people can live in our tax district and vote no on our schools and then can open enroll to schools outside.

He says this won't be the last we'll hear about the issue.

I can definitely tell you this will be in front of the voters again, without a doubt. The needs don't go away because of this vote. The needs are still there.

Meanwhile, district leaders will start working on making what they say are much-needed upgrades to both Tech and Apollo high school.

We're going to need to make some investments in those buildings. And, I don't believe that was the right choice, but the community voted and they said no. So there is going to be some immediate work we're going to need to do around infrastructure in our high schools.

Nine of the 13 voting precincts had a majority of "no" votes.