Several of the bond issues on Iowa ballots this November came close, but didn’t quite reach the 60% threshold for approval, while the largest school bond issue in state history easily passed.
Matt Smith is interim superintendent of Des Moines Independent Community School District, where a $265 million bonding plan passed with 74% support. “That’s not just a victory. That is a decisive victory,” Smith said. “That is a decisive vote that folks want to invest in the education of 30,000 kids and the 30,000 kids of tomorrow.”
The money will finance construction and renovation of school buildings and allow the Des Moines district to expand preschool as well as career-oriented programs. “The programs that we’re going to be able to build and actually create in Des Moines Public Schools is exactly what the community said that they wanted,” Smith said.
The vote came just weeks after former Des Moines Superintendent Ian Roberts was arrested by immigration agents.
Voters in the Cedar Rapids school district narrowly rejected a $117 million bond that would have supported upgrades to four schools. The plan fell less than a percentage point short of 60%. “We got to the top of the mountain, we just didn’t get to the summit. We’re just, you know, a few votes short,” said Ron Corbett, a leader in the Believe in CR Schools campaign. “…Thankfully, the overwhelming majority of people in Cedar Rapids voted for this.”
Voters had rejected a far larger proposal in 2023 and Cedar Rapids district officials had scaled back updates to the four schools. “The majority of people were in favor,” Cedar Rapids Superintendent Tawana Grover said of this year’s vote, “we just didn’t quite hit that 60 percent mark yet so that means that people do care about our schools and we have to figure out how to get this done for our students.”
There were 56 bond issues on this November’s ballots, most of them for school projects. For the second time, voters in the Dubuque Community School District rejected a plan to build a new middle school. A $37 million dollar bond issue for a new primary school building in the Sergeant Bluff-Luton School District narrowly failed — with 59.6% support. A plan in Emmetsburg to spend $25.6 million to rebuild an aging elementary school got yes votes from 54% percent of voters — six points short of the 60% needed to pass.
For the second time in two years, a bonding plan for a new Sac County Jail failed. It fell a little less than three percent short of the 60% necessary for passage.
Property tax levies were proposed in a few counties to support ambulance services. The EMS referendum in Clay County passed with 61% support, Buchanan County residents approved one with 65% support and nearly 69% of voters in Washington County approved raising property taxes for ambulance services. A second try at an EMS referendum in Calhoun County fell about three percent short of the required 60% threshold.
(Reporting by Lucia Cheng, Iowa Public Radio in Des Moines; James Kelley of Iowa Public Radio in Cedar Rapids and Radio Iowa’s O. Kay Henderson)