State may help Salmon School District

The Salmon School District is one step closer to making some repairs to its old school buildings.

Eight times, the school district has put up a bond to build new schools, and eight times the voters have rejected it.

On Monday, a state panel stepped in.

Mike Rush, the executive director of the State Board of Education, told Local News 8 that the state board has decided to to approve an application for financial help from the state with modifications.

The modifications are as follows:

Instead of building a new school, the panel approved money to fix existing buildings, to the tune of $3.6 million. The state panel agrees to fix the roof so it can handle a heavy snow load. It also agrees to fix some critical electrical problems in two school buildings.

Here’s what happens next:

The school district has to run another bond election for the ninth time for $3.6 million.

If that passes, the state steps out of the picture. If it fails, the state panel gets back involved and certifies $3.6 million to the Department of Education, which controls that cooperative funding program, and the state hires someone to manage that project.

So the panel isn’t at the point it will spend money; it’s simply certified a certain amount of money.

Now the Salmon School District will have the bond election in May.