After a series of work sessions in the last month, the Baldwin City Council has reached a consensus on what building programs should be part of the city’s capital improvement plan.

Among the building programs discussed were projects that have been on the City Council’s plate for three years. They are new police station, new public works headquarters, upgrades to City Hall and a theater at the Lumberyard Arts Center. Added to the list as a result of a Baldwin City Recreation Commission initiative that started in November was a new community center.

If the City Council follows through with developed consensus, the community center and police station would be built with the help of sales tax increases. That would require the City Council to advance bond referendums for both uses.

Baldwin City Administrator Glenn Rodden said no formal decisions could be made in the work session discussions, but City Council members did agree on the projects. The City Council now will need to get better numbers and designs to flesh out its ideas, he said. That process should start when the City Council meets at 7 p.m. Monday at the Baldwin City Public Library.

Rodden said there was little chance that details and language could be ready for any project for the November general election and that special elections would probably be scheduled at a later date should the City Council want to move on any of the projects before the next election cycle in 2018.

The community center discussion built on the Baldwin City Recreation Commission’s commitment from the Baldwin school board to provide about 2.5 acres of the Rhulen property north of the high school for a community center should voters approve a bond issue for its construction.

The consensus among council members now is to ask the school board to do more. The proposed plan would have the city ask voters to approve a 0.3 percent sales tax, which would raise about 120,000 per year for the community center’s debt retirement, while the school board would ask district voters to approve a mill levy increase to raise an equal amount for annual debt payment.

The proposed use of the district’s property tax authority to help fund the community center would capture the school district’s larger tax base. As discussed at the work sessions, the school district’s levy would not start until 2019 after bond payments for Baldwin High School ended. The district’s mill levy support for that debt payment is currently about 7 mills.

Baldwin school district Superintendent Paul Dorathy said such a request would be difficult with so many questions surrounding the state’s funding of local districts. Depending what happens in Topeka, the Baldwin school board could be forced to ask for more local tax support for the local option budget or capital outlay fund, he said.

“I would think our board would not be comfortable in a new tax until some of the questions of school finance are settled,” he said. “The board has no idea what the district’s mill levy would be at this time.”

The City Council also reached consensus on a number of issues involving a new police station, which would replace the current headquarters at 811 Eighth St. Although there was discussion about placing the police headquarters in the community center, the consensus now is to relocate the station in the public works department’s downtown property.

The $1.8 million to $2.4 million police station would be built through a combination of sales and property taxes, Rodden said. Once again, the city would have to get voter approval for any added sales tax authority.

That plan assumes the public works department would move to new headquarters in the city’s Orange Street yard. That building would not require voter approval as it would be paid for through electrical, sewer and water rates, Rodden said. An increase in sewer fees for the project was part of last year’s rate review of that utility and built into rate increases the City Council subsequently approved. Rate reviews of the electrical and water rates are currently being conducted and will consider debt payments for a new public works headquarters.

The Lumberyard theater was removed from the capital improvement list with the consensus that no city sales or property taxes would be used for the arts center project. Instead, discussion favored the city offering the use of industrial revenue bonds, which would allow the Lumberyard board to finance the theater with the city’s low interest rate.

Any City Hall improvements would have to wait until the police station was relocated, Rodden said.