District office repairs were among the suggestions for how the North Shore School District could utilize around $1.5 million in unused bond money. Voters approved the roughly $40 million bond in December 2019, with 48 percent of the money going toward “instructional needs.”
Superintendent Christopher Zublionis told the Board of Education during its February meeting that the remaining projects across the district that the bond helped fund were coming to a close. However, $1.5 million of the original bond remained unused. Zublionis said project costs fluctuated, leaving them with a surplus.
“When the bond is progressing, we might be estimating cost increases, so we’ll take projects off,” Superintendent Zublionis said. “We took the main office at the high school off the active list because we had increased costs in other projects.”
The North Shore Board of Education discussed where to allocate the remaining $1.5 million. Zublionis recommended that the board spend $500,000 on continuing projects outlined in the bond. However, none of the surplus bond funding can go toward new projects that weren’t directly approved by voters when the bond passed in 2019.
One of Zublionis’ top priorities included going forward with repairs to the district’s central office, which he says needs better waterproofing, and replacements for the roof, windows and fire escape. The board also recommended that the remaining $1 million go toward repaying the bond’s debt.
The bond allocated more than $13 million to infrastructure projects around the district, including classroom and bathroom renovations. Most of the bond items were for instructional purposes, like implementing a STEM lab at elementary schools and building a robotics lab and life skills lab at North Shore High School.
Around $2.7 million of the bond went toward installing air-conditioning systems for classrooms and other instructional spaces across all district buildings.
