Final votes trickling in from Jefferson County on Wednesday confirmed a dream come true for Redmond School District officials: The $97.7 million bond measure to provide desperately needed school repairs had narrowly passed.

The bond measure passed in Tuesday’s election with 52.1% of support compared to 47.9% opposition, but school district leaders were waiting for final tallies from Jefferson County to verify the win. Crooked River Ranch, a subdivision in the northern part of the Redmond School District that crosses the county line, includes a small number of voters who live in Jefferson County. Though in Deschutes County the Redmond bond measure passed by 53.3%, in Jefferson County voters opposed it 62.4% to 37.6% as of Wednesday afternoon.

Crooked River Ranch voters have a history of voting against bond measures. In 2018, a Redmond school bond failed due to significant opposition from voters in this area. The approximately 4,900 voters are mostly retirees. As of 2022 data, the median age for the area was 58.6.

Redmond School District Superintendent Charan Cline said he’s grateful to voters and the community for supporting the bond.

“We’re thrilled the bond passed,” he said. “We’re raising almost $100 million to do needed improvements to our schools, but fundamentally we’re just grateful. We’re grateful to the community; we’re grateful to the people that helped support us, the folks that helped pass this thing.”

What is the bond for?

Redmond High School needs to repair its heating, ventilation and air conditioning system, as well as its roof. Pipes, valves and fittings are wearing out, and the school’s boiler is run all day, every day so the pipes don’t shrink further and cause additional leaks. District leaders have been issuing warnings for months about an impending major failure in the system.

The bond funding will significantly repair the HVAC system, especially the piping, and the roof.

Other areas of the school will be expanded or remodeled, including the gymnasium and kitchen.

The bond will also be used to implement low-water landscaping at several sites and improve security measures and fire alarm systems, among other features. After parent requests, the funding will also be used to expand Tumalo Community School to a kindergarten-through-eighth-grade school.

“We know that people are feeling stretched with the amount of taxes that exist right now, and we’re just grateful that people decided to stick with us and help us make some major improvements in the schools,” said Cline.

This bond will not raise taxes due to replacing a bond that was retired in June. The tax rate of $2.26 per $1,000 of taxable assessed property value will remain the same.

Cline said that Redmond was the only school district that saw a bond approved on Tuesday. Other school districts, such as Tigard-Tualatin and Falls City, passed levies, which are typically temporary tax increases to support operations.

“I feel like we gave our voters a good value proposition. I think we showed clearly what the need was…I appreciate that folks felt like they could sacrifice a little bit to help us make sure our schools are in good shape for many years,” said Cline.

What’s next?

The district will now move to sell bonds to raise the money, and is already working with an agency. The process takes four to five months, said Cline.

Afterward, the district will issue a request for proposals for an owner’s representative, as well as applications for an oversight committee. The committee will ensure the district spends the money the way it said it would. Eventually, the district will begin the planning phase for projects, especially the large amount of work at Redmond High.

There will be some work the district can complete on its own over the summer, Cline said.

“We’re going to get our planning into hyperfocus, primarily because we’re really patching together those pipes at RHS, and as soon as we can get the major work done the better,” he said. “We’re still going to be in pipe-patching mode for quite a while, because if you think about it we have miles of pipes to replace at RHS and it’s going to be quite an engineering and planning feat to pull it all off.”

Cline wants to make sure once the work at Redmond High begins, it goes as efficiently as possible.

“We appreciate the community’s partnership with us: This is the business community. This is the political community. This is just people who are voting,” said Cline. “Obviously it wasn’t a slam dunk, but we got a lot of support over this work, and I just want to say how grateful we are to every segment of our community for being supportive of keeping our schools in good shape and providing a really quality education for our kids.”

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