During a Tahoma School Board workshop session on Monday the members discussed levies they wish to put on the ballot next February.

The session “focused mainly on discussion about a capital projects bond in addition to the technology levy and the operations levy,” according to Tahoma School District spokesman Kevin Patterson.

“The board has designated Feb. 9 as the election date,” Patterson said in an e-mail. “The operations levy, which provides more than 20 percent of our operating funds, would replace the levy that was approved in 2006 and will expire at the end of 2010. The tech levy is likely to be the same amount as last time, just under $10 million, also for four years.”

Last year the capital projects bond measure was studied by the Tahoma Community Relations Committee, Patterson explained.

“The committee brought five proposals to the school board, but could not reach consensus on a preferred option,” he said. “The board decided not to run a capital projects bond last year because of the recession. The board then turned its focus toward budget adjustments in reaction to the state budget cuts and reduced local funding.”

After tackling the budget, the school board has to address issues for projects around the district because “the need for the bond funding has not subsided.”

People may wonder why the district doesn’t budget for those kinds of maintenance projects but given the state’s tax distribution formula there just isn’t any money provided for it.

A common solution by districts across the state is to put bond issues to voters in the late winter or early spring to ask to pay for specific items.

“The board is now in the process of determining a modified proposal to take care of major building maintenance like replacement of LP siding, roofs, HVAC, carpeting and plumbing at selected sites, and to create additional classroom space,” Patterson said. “The board will also look at either replacing or extensively remodeling Lake Wilderness Elementary School.”

Patterson said the options the CRC originally considered in 2008 were estimated at the time to cost as much as $180 million.

“The school board, recognizing the economic changes that have occurred since then, will look at ways to change the scope or phase in projects over a longer time period,” he said. “They have just begun the process and we have no estimates or project descriptions yet.”

Also on the potential projects list last year was the addition of a second large lecture hall at Tahoma High that could hold about 100 students as well as new classrooms at Tahoma Junior High as well as looking at improvements at Cedar River Middle School.

The middle school, which has about 550 students in sixth and seventh grade, had a number of projects suggested district officials want to move kids into permanent classrooms and out of modular portable buildings.

The commons, where students eat lunch, is small and needs to be reconfigured and the school could also see some additions to its athletic fields like an oval track which Cedar River doesn’t have now.

Lake Wilderness Elementary has not been remodeled since the 1980s and the first wing was built in 1959. The building needs a complete overhaul while another project to tackle would be moving youngsters out of portables into permanent classrooms.