BLOOMFIELD — The Davis County School Board continued to discuss the proposed plans for a new high school at this week’s meeting. The discussion repeatedly circled back to one theme: What is the contingency plan if the current tax structure that is funding the project is reversed?

The tax in question is Iowa’s School Infrastructure Local Option (SILO) sales tax, which was implemented in 2004. The crux of SILO is that all taxes collected under the option are pooled together and then divided by the number of students enrolled in the 360 school districts throughout the state. The money is then distributed to each district based on the number of students enrolled for the purposes of maintaining facilities. The board has been adamant that the new high school will be fully funded by SILO without any new property taxes assessed.

Ken Turner of Bloomfield raised the issue first, referencing budget problems related to new facilities in Des Moines and then asked, “What is our plan?”

“I have spoken to numerous legislators” about the status of the SILO tax, said Superintendent Sam Miller. “It took eight years to pass and it is not going to change.” Because the tax impacts every district in the state, “if the tax formula changes, many districts will be in trouble, not just ours.

“The figures that are being used for our district are very, very conservative,” Miller added, explaining that projections are based on both a 2 percent and a zero percent growth rate in enrollment to ensure the numbers are as accurate as possible. Using those calculations, there is an estimated $120,000 per year “padding” in the budget.

Jeff Ashmore expressed concern that the potential costs of the current proposal could soar to more than $10 million, well above the $9.7 million available through the SILO tax.

The preliminary estimate for a new building provided at the public hearing is $9,774,810. Miller said that the proposal does include allocation for items such as furniture, but, while there is always the potential to go over-budget, there are some provisions in the regular budget to fall back on.

Ashmore responded to the furniture reference as, “That’s a good analogy, because if I’m going to buy furniture for my house and the money’s not there, I don’t buy it. If [the board] gets to the place where there’s no money left to finish this, will you stop building? Because I don’t want my property taxes raised.”

“We do not intend to start this project if we cannot afford it,” said Board President Marty Owen.

Jane Bigsby questioned the viability of giving up on the current high school.

“How much could we tack on every month to keep it going?”

“I don’t know that anyone has set down and figured those figures out exactly,” responded Owen, but Miller cited utility expenses as an example of a barrier. “Last year it cost $80,000 to heat the high school” in comparison to “the elementary and middle schools together cost about one-third of that.”

Other issues raised included:

• What is the impact of home-schooled children in projections? Miller responded, “Home-schooled children are counted, but as a percentage” of 0.3 per child.

• Will the building incorporate “green” materials? Miller answered that the architects have approached the design to be as “eco-friendly as possible.” Board member Rod Lynch added that the possibility of using geo-thermal had been investigated but was not feasible.