A18
NEWS
Blue Mountain Eagle
Wednesday, May 8, 2019
Grants
Continued from Page A1
Recommended upgrades
from seismic assessments
are fully funded by the Seis-
mic Rehabilitation Grant
Program.
Monument
Superin-
tendent/Principal
Don-
ald Petersen said the main
building of the school,
which houses offices and
high school classrooms, is
70-80 years old and made
of sandstone.
He anticipates the pro-
fessionals who assess that
building for long-range
planning will determine
how much longer it will
last.
Petersen said they’d
likely need to pass a bond
in 10 to 20 years to make
long-term upgrades.
The conservative com-
munity hasn’t passed a
bond “in a long time,” he
said, but the grants will at
least allow them to plan for
the future.
Improvements for the
short term include areas of
the Monument elementary
building where there is rot-
ted siding, peeling paint and
several large single-pane
windows that need replac-
ing, he said.
“We know we need cer-
tain repairs,” he said. “This
(grant) establishes it profes-
sionally, so if we need to,
we can get a grant from the
state and apply for a match-
ing grant to do the work that
we need to do.”
The Oregon Legislature
created the Office of School
Facilities in 2015. As of last
fall, the office had awarded
$175 million in matching
grants through the OSCIM
Program and $4.1 million
in TAP grants to school
districts.
In the 2019 round,
66 school districts were
awarded 122 TAP grants
totaling $2,925,000.
Prairie City School
911
Continued from Page A1
Grant County Emergency
Communications Agency
went into operation Jan. 1
and moved into the John
Day Fire Hall in April.
Emergency dispatch ser-
vice has been the norm
in Oregon for nearly four
decades. According to mate-
rial presented by Findley,
the Oregon Legislature man-
dated the establishment of
911 emergency dispatch ser-
vices in 1981, along with a 3
percent surcharge on phone
fees to support the service.
Ten years later, the sur-
charge was increased to 5
percent.
The Legislature con-
verted the phone fees to a
straight 75 cents per trans-
action in 1995. Sixty percent
of the collected revenue cur-
rently goes to counties and
cities to operate 911 dispatch
centers, with a minimum of
1 percent per county.
The statewide phone fees
raised $45 million in 2018,
with $27 million going to
the cities and counties, but
operational costs for all of
the state’s 911 dispatch cen-
ters is estimated to be $145
million.
Committee hearings
A public hearing for the
bill took place before the
Eagle photos/Angel Carpenter
Prairie City School District Superintendent/Principal Casey
Hallgarth stands in front of the entrance to the school’s
cafeteria and main gym. The district received a $2.5 million
seismic grant to make the building safer. Work is expected to
start in June of 2020.
District
Prairie
City School
District
received all
four
TAP
grants.
The $2.5
million seis-
Donald
mic grant,
Petersen
received
after a previous assessment,
will pay for upgrades to
the cafeteria and gym. That
work will begin in June of
2020.
Superintendent/Princi-
pal Casey Hallgarth said the
TAP grants will help them
implement a maintenance
program.
He said areas of focus
for recent TAP awards
include “the Bates build-
ing, the roofs to all of our
buildings, exterior and inte-
rior conditions of all build-
ings and developing a
maintenance plan for our
district to address the issues
of our 100-plus-year-old
building.”
“These grants give us
House Committee on Vet-
erans and Emergency Pre-
paredness on March 12, with
24 agencies providing testi-
mony, including John Day
City Manager Nick Green
and Grant County Emer-
gency
Communications
Agency Director Valerie
Maynard.
According to Green, when
the city operated the 911 dis-
patch center in Grant County,
it was one of the smallest
centers in Oregon “but also
one of the most efficient.”
Nonetheless, over the past
two decades, the cost-reve-
nue gap “grew to the point
that it became operationally
unstable,” he said.
“While revenue measures
are rarely popular, especially
in a conservative county, we
heard a consistent message
during our attempts to pass
the local ballot measure” to
support local 911 service,
he said. “Residents would
much rather pay an addi-
tional 75 cents per month in
their phone bills than a dis-
proportionate rate in their
property tax base.”
Maynard noted that rising
costs and limited resources
nearly forced the local 911
center to close, with dis-
patch service outsourced to
another county.
“The cost to do business
continues to rise every year,
and yet we are still operating
on a tax that is 24 years old,”
the opportunities to have
professionals come in and
develop a sound plan and
for us to budget for the near
future and the long term,”
he said, adding the long-
range plans will include
engagement with the com-
munity to determine how to
best meet educational goals
for the next 20 years.
Hallgarth said the Bates
building could provide an
all-day daycare, carpentry
classes, a dormitory or an
all-day preschool down the
road.
With upgrades, the stu-
dents and staff could have
reliable classrooms that
don’t leak and are energy
efficient, keeping cool on
hot days and warm on cold
days, he said.
“It is amazing what a
controlled climate in the
classroom can produce
against a classroom that is
too hot or cold or has leaks,”
he said. “It also offers the
students and staff a safe
environment.”
He added, “At Prai-
Grant School District 3 Superintendent Bret Uptmor stands
in front of Humbolt Elementary School in Canyon City.
Seismic upgrades were made to parts of the school, including
the cafeteria, last summer. The district has been awarded a
seismic assessment grant to determine if other buildings in
the district need upgrades.
rie City, we are committed
to the safety and efficiency
of our classrooms, and we
want to get this started here
as soon as we can.”
Stacie Holmstrom, who is
deputy clerk/business man-
ager for Grant Education
Service District and Monu-
ment and Prairie City school
districts, said the requests
for proposals for the proj-
ects for Monument and Prai-
rie City, which she’ll be
writing, will be sent out by
June 1, and there is a list of
approved architecture firms
to complete the work.
The assessments will
take place during the next
school year, which starts
July 1.
After receiving their
assessment plans, schools
can apply for grants through
the OSCIM Program for a
matching grant.
“Schools will have to
determine what they can
do,” Holmstrom said.
Grant School District 3
Grant School District 3
received a $20,000 facilities
assessment grant, a $25,000
seismic grant and a long-
range facility plan grant.
All the buildings in the
district will be evaluated,
including Seneca School
and the district offices,
Superintendent Bret Upt-
mor said.
“The seismic TAP grant
will assess our buildings for
future seismic projects with
the buildings that were not
retrofitted with any of the
previous grants,” he said.
The district previously
received a grant total-
ing $1,235,940 for seis-
mic work through former
Superintendent Curt Shel-
ley, who moved after the
2017-18 school year.
The grant was for both
Humbolt
Elementary
School and Grant Union
Junior-Senior High School.
Work outlined for Hum-
bolt with that grant was
completed last summer, and
upgrades to Grant Union
will begin May 13 with a
short break during gradua-
Opposing testimony
The Eagle/Richard Hanners
Cammie Haney works in the Grant County Emergency
Communications Agency’s new dispatch center in the John
Day Fire Hall on April 30.
she said. “We do not have
the resources to pull from in
our rural county to support
the increased cost share bur-
den that is being put on our
residents.”
Testimony in support of
HB 2449 came from repre-
sentatives of the Association
of Public Safety Commu-
nication Officials, National
Emergency Number Associ-
ation, Oregon State Sheriffs
Association, Oregon Asso-
ciation of Chiefs of Police,
Oregon Fire District Direc-
tors Association and League
of Oregon Cities, as well
Grant SWCD Weed Control Dept.
Working for You in 2019
Thanks to the Grant County Court and Northeast Oregon Forests Resource
Advisory Committee, Grant Weed Control is able to offer a 50% Cost
Share Program for Noxious Weed Control on Private Grazing Lands,
through a Title II funded Grant Project. This program will provide a
maximum $5,000 of noxious weed control services with a $2,500 maximum
landowner contribution to qualifying participants. To be eligible for
participation, the treatment property must not be actively irrigated and must
be primarily managed for livestock grazing, minimum of 20 acres in size,
located within Grant County, and must contain weed species listed on the
Grant County Noxious Weed List. Applications for this limited weed control
assistance opportunity will be funded on a first come first serve basis.
Applications due by June 5th.
Contact the Grant Soil and Water Conservation District Office at
(541) 575-1554 or visit 721 S. Canyon Blvd., John Day, OR 97845 for
applications and additional information.
117734
as cities and counties from
across the state, large and
small.
The committee followed
up with a work session on
April 4, where it voted 7-1
to refer the bill to the House
Committee on Revenue as
amended. An amendment
removed a provision that
would have provided coun-
ties with less than 40,000
residents 2 percent of the
total phone tax revenue
instead of 1 percent. Testi-
mony in support of the bill
was provided by eight more
cities and counties.
The House Committee
on Revenue, where Find-
ley is vice chairman, took
up the bill with a hearing
on April 22. Testimony was
taken from at least 38 rep-
resentatives of cities, coun-
ties, emergency dispatch
providers and communi-
cations companies. Testi-
mony in support came from
metropolitan areas such as
Portland, Eugene, Salem,
Gresham, Hillsboro and
Clackamas and Washington
counties.
Concerns about the bill
were voiced by CTIA, a
trade association for the
wireless communications
industry. CTIA noted that
HB 2449 called for collect-
ing $1.50 per phone bill for
emergency dispatch, while
Washington collects 95
cents, California collects 31
cents, Idaho collects $1 and
Nevada collects 25 cents.
Funding for 911 dispatch
should be limited to “allow-
able costs,” CTIA said, and
not be used for “leasing real
estate, cosmetic remodeling
of facilities, salaries or bene-
fits, or emergency vehicles.”
CTIA also called for con-
solidating 911 centers into
regional centers “covering
as large a number of local
jurisdictions as can be effi-
ciently served.”
Verizon and T-Mobile
representatives also testi-
tion week.
A new roof was added
to the elementary school’s
cafeteria.
“Top to bottom, every-
thing is tied together” with
reinforcements in the ceil-
ing, walls and flooring, Upt-
mor said.
Walls were also rein-
forced in classrooms, and
rock walls outside the
school office were taken
out. Since that removed
seating, a couple benches
were added in place.
Five steel, U-shaped
beams tie classrooms to the
gym near the breezeway
between the buildings.
Uptmor said the facility
assessment TAP grant can
be used to assess the cur-
rent physical condition of
the facilities, determine the
level of deficiencies and
provide a rough estimate for
repair costs.
“The long-range facility
plan and facilities assess-
ment grant provide infor-
mation to the Grant School
District Board of Directors
(including) direction and
planning for the future of
our facilities,” he said.
Dayville School
District
Dayville School District
received a $25,000 seismic
assessment grant.
Last year, the school was
awarded assessment grants
for facilities and long-range
planning, totaling $45,000,
said Superintendent/Princi-
pal Kathryn Hedrick.
“We used that money to
develop plans for repairs and
upgrades and led the board
to go to the voters ... for a
bond proposal,” she said.
She said, with the seis-
mic assessment grant, they
will “have a structural engi-
neer study the gym, the ele-
mentary, and the main high
school building through the
seismic lens.”
She said the school board
will choose the engineering
firm for that assessment at
their meeting in May.
fied about concerns they had
with the bill. Verizon noted
that the increase to $1.50 per
phone bill far exceeds the
inflation rate. Based on the
consumer price index, over-
all costs increased by 65 per-
cent from 1995 to 2018, but
forecast revenues from HB
2449 would be 197 percent
higher.
The increase in 911
dispatch costs, however,
results from more than
inflation, according to Find-
ley. Much of the increased
costs result from changes
in technology, including
implementation of a state-
wide digital network, text
to 911 service, new call-tak-
ing equipment, mapping
hardware and software,
data management for geo-
graphical information sys-
tems, additional work sta-
tions needed for increased
call volumes, higher ven-
dor costs for phone system
maintenance and increased
911 call delivery infrastruc-
ture due to increased state-
wide call volume.
The next step for the bill
is up to Revenue Committee
Chairwoman Rep. Nancy
Nathanson, D-Eugene. She
could schedule another work
session, where amendments
could be adopted and the
bill would be voted out of
committee for a House floor
vote, or the bill could die in
committee.