As the Bowling Green High School facility approaches 50 years old, officials in the Bowling Green Independent School District are considering an additional property tax that would allow renovation costs to be shared between the district and the Kentucky Department of Education.

“We’d like to build, in essence, a new school over time at the site where we’re at,” Superintendent Gary Fields said this week.

As it stands, the district can only set aside $15 million for the multi-phase renovation project, which would cost roughly $60 million. However, Fields said an additional tax of 5.4 cents for every $100 of assessed property value would bring the district’s bonding capacity up to $37 million.

The BGISD Board of Education discussed the issue in a meeting this week. Board member Frank “Hamp” Moore said the tax increase would amount to an extra $54 on a tax bill for a $100,000 property. The tax would apply to homes and commercial property but not personal property such as automobiles.

“We’re in a listening period,” Moore said. “We need a clear idea about exactly what needs to be done and what revenue is available to do it.”

Fields said the potential renovations could include upgrades to the school’s 1970s-era science labs and create space for a new medical arts academy and a freshman academy.

“We want to do significant projects in possibly two phases,” he said. “We don’t want a generation of kids to be attending a high school that has been under construction for their entire educational career from kindergarten to high school.”

However, the district’s current ability to take on new debt for the project is limited because of debt service on previous projects.

“Since 2000, the district has spent over $70 million on facilities,” Fields said. Those include a new middle school building, new buildings for Parker-Bennett-Curry, Dishman-McGinnis and T.C Cherry elementary schools and significant remodels at Potter Gray and W.R. McNeill elementary schools.

“That was intentional,” Fields said, adding that the district first sought to upgrade those facilities in the 1990s.

BGHS remains the district’s biggest lingering project.

“The question is, how many phases and how long of a time are we going to have to do it?” Fields said.

Moore said the BGHS layout is problematic. The school was originally designed with an open layout but was later remodeled when that was found to be impractical, he said.

Land is scarce within the school district, Moore said, noting that the district once considered building an entirely new school on the BGHS campus while the current building remained in use. However, it was determined that the space could not simultaneously accommodate two high school buildings and the BGHS athletic facilities.

That leaves renovating the existing school building, he said.

“If we did this with our present financial arrangement, we’d have to do it in phases over many, many years,” Moore said. “Our worry is that the fatigue that comes from always being under construction is tough on learning.”

If the district can raise the money locally through the tax, Moore said the state would consider matching the amount raised.

“I think all of us are reluctant to increase the tax at all,” Moore said. “We pay taxes like everybody in our district does.”