Just one year after a school bond proposal for the Sulphur bonding district failed at the voting booth, another bond for the area is on the ballot.
On Nov. 3, residents in Calcasieu Parish School Board Bonding District 30 will vote whether to pass a $74 million bond that is set to benefit the schools in the Sulphur district, according to School Board Superintendent Jason VanMetre.
“All the schools in the bonding district, in the Sulphur bonding district, are getting something,” VanMetre said. “The only campuses that are not a part of this in Sulphur are our campuses at Maplewood, because they actually bond in a different district, so they actually bond with Westlake.”
The bond includes upgrades for Sulphur High School, which all Sulphur middle schools file into, including construction of a new music building, canopy-covered walkways and major renovations to five buildings on the main campus, according to .
In addition to upgrades at the high school, improvements for the district also include a new basketball playcourt and dining addition at Frasch Elementary, additions to the gym and football field at LeBlanc Middle School, a new two-story classroom building addition to the eighth grade wing at W.W. Lewis Middle School, and a new cafeteria addition to R.W. Vincent Elementary. Several other projects in the bond will include additional renovations and work at the school.
The proposed $74 million bond would run over 25 years with an estimated millage rate of $7.9 mills. Homes with an assessed value of $100,000 would pay $1.66 a month if the bond passes, according to the property tax calculator on the CPSB website. Homes with an assessed value of $150,000 would have a monthly cost of $4.94 if passed, and one with an assessed value of $200,000 would be at $8.23 monthly.
The bond proposal was parsed down from the November 2025 proposal, which was a total of $83 million over 25 years with an estimated millage rate of 9 mills.
“With the other bond issue, what we were going to do was we to completely tear down building three (on the Sulphur High School Main Campus) and turn around and rebuild it,” VanMetre said. “Part of what we're looking to do is we still see the same problems, for example with building three, but we're going to end up saving about $7 or $7.5 million, in terms of not rebuilding but moving things around in order to save money that way.”
In addition to slimming down the cost, VanMetre said the district has also been working to hopefully increase the voter turnout for the election, since the turnout last fall was only 8.3%.
“What that means is that we have to do a better job of communicating that vision, and that's on me as the leader,” VanMetre said. “We're making sure that everybody, hopefully, in Sulphur understands the importance of this and why we're asking for this, because we're not just asking for a bond because it's time to ask for a bond. We're asking for bond issues because it's one of those things where we see the facilities in Sulphur as being able to be drastically improved, and this bond is the way to do it.”
VanMetre said bond issues are how the district can get major facility improvements at its schools, and in a way that can't always be seen in terms of just updates and maintenance.
“When you talk about building new buildings and things like that, a lot of times we're going to do that through bond issues,” VanMetre said. “Now, sometimes we'll actually go through and we'll have we'll be able to build a pod or two out of riverboat funds and things like that, but in terms of making wholesale changes on a campus or refreshing the inside of a campus with things like paint or expanding a cafeteria … we look at bond issues, because it's folks within that area that are going to be that would be paying for it.”
However, this will be the last chance for the bond to pass under the Calcasieu Parish School Board’s current bonding process.
On Aug. 27, Federal Judge James Cain ruled that the Calcasieu Parish School Board would no longer have to uphold obligations under the desegregation case Conley et al. v. Lake Charles School Board.
Within the order, Cain ordered that the school board devise a plan to move to parishwide bonding for academic facilities rather than the current bonding districts. Following the Nov. 3 election and the spring election for bonding District 33, the Calcasieu Parish School Board will be changing the procedures.
“We do have to present a plan for districtwide bonding, but that has to go to the voters,” VanMetre said. “That's not something that we can just decree. We present a plan to the judge, and then the voters have to actually vote on the parishwide bonding.”