MOORPARK : District to Take Vote on Bond Issue

Rushing to meet a July 6 deadline, Moorpark Unified School District officials will vote on a resolution to put a $32-million bond measure on the November ballot at a special meeting Monday, district officials said.

School district officials say they need the money to expand Moorpark Memorial High School, build a new middle school and a continuation high school to keep up with the city’s rapid growth.

The school district must submit the exact wording of the bond measure as it will appear on the November ballot to county officials by Friday to qualify for the general election ballot, said Jenny Harrison, elections services coordinator.

Carmela Vignocchi, assistant superintendent for business services, said Moorpark school board members will meet with financial and bond consultants to complete the wording at the special meeting.

If placed on the ballot, the bond measures must receive two-thirds of the vote to pass.

If the proposed Moorpark measure passes, property taxes would increase an average of about $280 a year, Vignocchi said.

For example, a home assessed at a value of $200,000 would pay a maximum of about $23 a month, she said.

The property taxes would be assessed over a 25-year period.

The measure was proposed by Moorpark schools Supt. Thomas G. Duffy as a way to raise money for new schools in the city.

Growth in the district has been increasing at an average rate of about 400 students a year.

Although average growth in schools across the state is about 2%, the growth rate in Moorpark is about 8%, Vignocchi said. When the district unified eight years ago, enrollment was about 2,000 students.

By next fall, however, officials project that enrollment will be about 5,400 students, she said.

“We’ve had pretty dramatic growth in the last few years and we expect that to continue,” she said.