ORR residents to vote on Opt Out Tuesday

The Oldham-Ramona-Rutland School District will be holding a Capital Outlay Opt Out Vote on Tuesday. The ORR board voted in June to opt-out of their Capital outlay limitations.

The opt-out is in an amount not to exceed $700,000 starting with calendar year 2025, taxes payable in the calendar year 2026. As a newly formed school district, ORR residents were already paying $3 per $1,000 of Taxable Valuation. So while new, the opt-out essentially keeps the current tax burden to residents at the same level. 

The vote by the district was then referred to a public vote.

ORR has also previously tried three different times to pass a bond vote to build a new school for the district. 

In a letter to district stakeholders, Superintendent Dawn Hoeke said if Tuesday’s capital outlay opt out vote fails, the board will demo the old Ramona two-story building, add on to the new Ramona addition and designate either the Ramona or Rutland school as the PreK-5 elementary school and the other as the 6-12 school. 

If the capital outlay opt out vote is successful, the board will either seek a $10 to $12 million bond to secure additional funds to build on the corner of US HWY 81 and 223rd St., or the board will not seek additional funds and will simply use $14.5 million in capital outlay certificates plus cash reserves to build one PreK-12 school in Ramona. A survey would be sent out to stakeholders for their input on which of these two directions to take.