Burlingame School District seeks $100 million bond measure for maintenance

Shooting for more money is a good idea to allow for more financial flexibility in coming years, Trustee Nicole Mustafa said. 

“This is the longest we’ve gone between bonds, so that’s certainly worth considering,” Mustafa said. “Giving us a bigger buffer I think is a very important idea.” 

The district passed its most recent bond, worth $97 million, in March 2020. The bond measure was a $25 tax per $100,000 of assessed property value.

There are projects that were intended to be addressed with previous bonds that have been kicked downhill due to other priorities, which should be taken into consideration as rationale to see the higher bond number, Trustee Katie Jay said. 

“Thinking about those great things we want to make happen along with the future bond projects, I feel like that does warrant moving to $100 million,” Jay said. 

While Trustee Doug Brown said there isn’t a significant material difference between $89 million and $100 million for taxpayers, and “there wasn’t any red flags or yellow flags about increasing it,” he said the board should still carefully weigh the ask.

“We have to think about keeping some capacity for future projects, future boards and future needs,” Brown said, since the bond measures in the past have stacked on top of one another. 

The approval by trustees to seek $100 million through a potential bond measure does not officially call for an election in November. That vote must be made yet again by trustees before early August, at which point the district would have to take a step back from working on any campaign.

The bond money would go toward ongoing costs of re-piping buildings, updating Wi-Fi and preparing for emergencies, Superintendent Marla Silversmith has said previously. Trustees emphasized the revenue source would go largely to maintenance, rather than large renovations.