HERMANN — A formal list of projects funded with new bond money is expected to be developed in January by Gasconade County R-1 officials. The Board of Directors is working toward a vote next month placing a bond issue on the April 7 General Municipal Elections ballot.

Just how much will be sought is not clear. District officials are in the process of obtaining bids for some of the capital improvement projects being discussed. Perhaps the largest component of the bond amount will be the replacement and associated costs of a new roof on Hermann High School. Superintendent Geoff Neill told the board at last week’s regular monthly session the roof project could cost as much as $2.5 million.

R-1 currently has a bonding capacity of about $7 million, thanks in large part to the management of previous bond programs and the early payoff that save the district hundreds of thousands of dollars. However, Neill has said he doesn’t expect the final list of projects to require the full $7 million; rather, he said it might be that the projects — depending on the bids that are obtained — might need only about $5 million.

The district’s most recent bond issue two years ago was for $5 million and while it received a majority support, it did not meet the four-sevenths requirement for passage. The proposal failed by about 30 votes.

Along with the high school roof, other projects include upgraded heating-and-cooling systems at Hermann Elementary School and Hermann Middle School, a new coating for the parking lots and a remodeling of the older portion of classrooms at the elementary school. If funds remained after the primary projects, they could be used for improvements to the high school’s auditorium, such as new lighting and an upgraded sound system.

One message that Neill wants to voice to district voters is that administrators have been good stewards of previous bond funding.

“We’ve been very lucky,” he said Thursday night “We’ve been able to manage our bonds,” he added.

He explained that the district can’t offer a bond size yet because of the time gap between now and April, citing fluctuations in costs during this time.

“We can’t get an accurate bid right now,” he said.

The April ballot is shaping up to be one of the most crowded ballots in recent years. Indeed, Gasconade County Clerk Lesa Lietzow, the county’s chief elections official, recently told the County Commission that she thinks the April 7 ballot might be the largest ballot she has dealt with in her 20 years of overseeing elections.

It’s not known for certain just how many other political subdivisions will have bond or tax issues on the ballot; the deadline to place an issue on the Spring ballot isn’t until Jan. 27. As usual, the April ballot will have a number of local-government positions to be filled — from school board seats to board of aldermen positions to directors positions of the county’s Enhanced-911 Program and ambulance districts.

In addition to the local offices and issues, voters will be faced with a decision on Senate Bill 3, a statewide property tax-relief measure for homeowners. This issue will garner much attention as the April vote gets closer, likely siphoning voters’ attention from other proposals on the ballot.

In other matters taken up during the R-1 board session, directors approved the receipt of the district’s annual audit, which again was a so-called “clean” audit with one exception — what’s called a “material finding” that not enough eyes are on the district’s financial books. The call from the auditors for more staff to be involved in the process is long standing and not unusual for smaller school districts. R-1 officials long have said the district can’t justify the cost of two or three additional staffers just to satisfy this particular finding of the annual reviews.