GIBBON — A small crowd listened to school referendum options and related discussion at a Gibbon Fairfax Winthrop (GFW) Board of Education facilities work session in the Gibbon Elementary School cafeteria Monday night.

The board continues to study building referendum options in hopes of coming to a referendum decision for school district voters to decide in November.

School superintendent Lonnie Seifert asked the board what it wanted he and construction managers to do to help them decide what school bond referendum options to consider.

Earlier this year, a school district task force looked at existing school conditions, enrollment trends and survey results among other factors before ranking referendum options.

After many meetings, the task force favored building one school building at a estimated cost of $50.8 million at a site to be determined. A number of board members voiced interest in building one new school again Monday.

The task force’s second-most popular option was extensively remodeling the Winthrop school for grades preK-6 and remodeling Fairfax facilities for grades 7-12 for $28.9 million.

Seifert said the school district has too much school space with high operating and maintenance costs. He said district buildings have about $17 million in maintenance projects to be done alone.

School space comparisons showed that the existing three schools have 294,250 square feet of space–123,750 in Winthrop, 103,500 in Fairfax and 67,000 in Gibbon.

A three-school project could reduce square footage to 262,260 square feet. A two-school option could cut the figure to 187,824 square feet. A one-school option would cut that number to 175,350 square feet.

R. A. Morton Construction Manager Preston Euerle of St. Cloud said new buildings would be more efficient to heat and cool but reducing the total square footage is also an important component.

Euerle said it would cost about $1 million to update outdoor high school athletic facilities in Winthrop and $1.5 to $2 million to build new athletic facilities at another site.

A number of school board members talked about hearing referendum option presentations from Winthrop, Gibbon and Fairfax city officials in the coming weeks. Those presentations will be heard by the board and public in the Gibbon school cafeteria at 6 p.m., Thursday, May 30.

A special board meeting to pair down referendum options was set for 6 p.m. Monday, June 3, in the Gibbon cafeteria. If referendum options are not determined by that time, they may be considered at the 6 p.m. Monday, June 17, board meeting in Winthrop.

Fritz Busch can be emailed at fbusch@nujournal.com.