Ramona Unified trustees voted to put a $26.7 million bond measure on the Nov. 5 ballot for improvements to the college preparation and vocational education facilities, classrooms and to update emergency communication/fire alarm systems.

Voters will decide whether to raise funds for the general obligation bond repayment by charging Ramona taxpayers $59 per $100,000 of their assessed property values annually for seven years.

Trustees approved a wish list of specific items that will be presented to voters in the ballot along with the proposed tax rate and length of repayment by a 4-1 vote June 27, with Trustee Maya Phillips opposed.

Phillips said she is concerned about proposals to raise state taxes, city of San Diego sales taxes and other bond measures for the state’s public education facilities and Palomar Community College facilities.

“The state will have to increase taxes on residents in some shape or form to get some money,” she said. “Due to these reasons I can’t support a bond at this time.”

Trustee Daryn Drum said later in the meeting that it would be up to the voters to decide whether to move forward with a bond issue.

“What we are voting on is to allow the public of this community to decide whether they want to support it or not,” Drum said. “We’re not making a decision to tax our constituents tonight. Let the people speak and make the decision.”

The bond issue requires approval from at least 55 percent of the voters, according to a staff report.

Dale Scott of Dale Scott & Co., who presented bond information to the trustees, said if the bond measure is approved by voters, bonds would be sold to investors to raise cash and they would be paid back the borrowed amount with interest.

Trustees had a lengthy discussion on the ballot language. Ramona resident Kim Newcomer told trustees that a proposed list of projects to be paid for with the bond was not specific. She said the text was too generic but she was glad to see that a proposal to buy and lease property with the funds was removed.

“If you want to pass a bond in Ramona it is my opinion that you need to write a measure that is specific,” said Newcomer, the only public speaker on the proposed bond measure. “This measure is not.

“The bond measures have failed in Ramona in 1974, 1997, 2002, 2012 and 2014,” she said. “There are many inspiring reasons to pass a bond measure … please give us something specific that we can support.”

Newcomer said the wording left open the possibility to use the funds to renovate early childhood education classrooms, construct athletic fields, build a new school administration building or repair deteriorating parking lots.

Trustee Rodger Dohm said he was glad to see the bond would focus both on vocational education facilities and repairs to school district facilities since they are equally important.

School Board President Dawn Perfect recommended, and others agreed, to delete wish-list funds for school libraries, athletic fields and running tracks, a pool and cafeteria.

Trustee Dan Summers said voters may have rejected previous bond proposals because they contained too many items.

Trustees also agreed to delete funding for improvements to administrative and ancillary support facilities in addition to special education and early childhood education classrooms.

The final language approved by trustees said the bond would be used to improve the district’s college preparation and vocational education facilities; repair leaky roofs and plumbing; update emergency communication/fire alarm systems; and replace deteriorating portable classrooms.

Superintendent Brian Thurman told trustees that one of the significant reasons to pursue this type of a general obligation bond is that, if approved, it would allow the district to be eligible for matching funds available from the state through taxpayer revenue and the state’s general fund.

The school district has historically missed out on state-provided resources due to the lack of an approved bond measure, he said.

In a random survey of 266 likely voters conducted by San Francisco-based Dale Scott & Co. in April,  between 52 percent and 63 percent of respondents said they would likely vote to approve the bond measure after receiving information about the proposal.

Of those surveyed, 26 percent said they have children attending Ramona Unified schools, 22 percent said their children have attended the district’s schools in the past, and 41 percent said they have had neither children nor grandchildren attend the district’s schools.

Also in response to the question, do you agree or disagree that Ramona’s public schools are our community’s most important asset and should be our No. 1 priority, 83 percent of the respondents said they agreed, 12 percent disagreed, and 5 percent did not know.

Thurman said the district plans to identify specific projects by mid- to late August. The district will share details about the projects, including renderings, at meetings, he said.

“An architect has talked to us about projects that we might do and rough dollar amounts assigned to those projects, and it was obvious right away that we would not build all of our dreams with this bond but we might get a nice Career Technical Education facility with this bond,” Perfect said.

“Thank you everyone who participated and got us to this point. It was a long slog but I think we’ve done some pretty good work towards getting what we need for our students.”