Last Tuesday, voters in the West Fork School District approved a $16,865,000 bond issue for site improvements at both the Sheffield and Rockwell campuses.
The bond passed with 1,590 voters, or 62.55%, approving the measure. There were 952 no votes cast, or 37.45%. School bond issues need 60% approval in order to pass.
A similar bond issue failed in the district during the 2023 election with 59.68% of voters approving the measure. West Fork Superintendent Mike Kruger tells RadioOnTheGo News it was a relief to see the bond issue pass after falling just short last year.
“We’re really excited. I guess I was cautiously optimistic going into last night’s election. It felt pretty good, but it wasn’t any different than how I felt a year ago. And then when we fell just that short, it was we had to regroup and come back to our voters. And I’m just so happy that our voters, they stepped up and really invested in West Fork Schools for the future. So we are excited about that and thankful all at the same time.”
Funds will be used to replace roofing, upgrade ventilation and HVAC and upgrade electrical distribution at both campuses. Kruger says there were a lot of people that helped make this bond issue a reality.
“It’s very rewarding to see all the efforts. We had a task force that spent a lot of time and energy, not only our board members, everybody just trying to get out and communicate and share the information, the factual information as far as what we were trying to do and what it was gonna cost. There were a lot of city hall meetings, there was a lot of open houses, just trying to do our best to get word out so that after Tuesday’s election, we didn’t have people say, ‘well, we didn’t know that was, but it was going for what exactly this was all about.’ So I felt like we were able to do that. And the fact that we had almost twice as many yes votes as we had combined votes from a year ago. You know, I think that’s very telling.”
Kruger says they hope to start the scope of the projects by the summer of 2026.
