Two town hall meetings are scheduled this month to receive public input on the possible new high school project in Junction City.

Dr. Corbin Witt, USD 475 Superintendent, said that the time is now to act on a new school.

“This is year that the money is there, we know the money is there and we would have access,” said a confident Witt. “I specifically asked Dale Dennis, who is the Head of the Education Finance Department, ‘has the State of Kansas ever defaulted on a bond and interest payment’, and he said ‘the State of Kansas can’t because it’s a demand-item transfer’ – the Legislature doesn’t even get to vote or anything, it’s made before any other expenditures are made; he said, there’s really no chance that they wouldn’t pay for their portion of the bond and interest.”

Witt said that he understands there are concerns on whether or not State and Federal sources are reliable and he’s fully comfortable the assurance received from Dennis.

“Before this year, we used to get 69% State match and then the State dropped the percentage match on that [and so it went down to 48]; there’s some talk of going back and reinstating [that 69%] because they didn’t feel it was fair that the school districts that passed bond issues last year would get 20% more from the State than the ones who passed [bond issues] this year,” said Witt.

Witt said that if that were to take place and the State paid for 69% of the project, that would make it more imperative to “move on this now”.

“We as an administrative team feel like this is something that we need to take to the voters now, because it would be irresponsible of us not to have this once in a lifetime opportunity give the community an opportunity to vote on it,” said Witt.

The first of two town hall meetings to make presentations to the community and receive public input is on Tuesday, January 17th in Settles Auditorium inside Junction City High School at 7:00 pm. Members of the community are invited to come at 6:00 pm for a tour of the facilities and infrastructure concerns.

The meeting will be video live-streamed on the District website and on JC Post the day of the event, as well as a live broadcast on the radio on AM station 1420 KJCK – The Talk of JC.

JC Post will have the viewing link for the live stream posted on the morning on January 17th.

The second town hall meeting is scheduled for Saturday, January 28th.

The JCHS Steering Committee will meet again on January 12th.