PRINEVILLE, OR -- Despite a surge of last-minute ballots Tuesday night, the $66 million Crook County School Bond appears headed for defeat. CCSD's Jason Carr is not ready to concede just yet. He’s holding out hope mail-in ballots could push it back to victory. As of Thursday morning, the bond is failing by just 137 votes.

The school district asked for the bond for maintenance and upgrade work. Carr says a property tax bond is the only mechanism the district has to pay for necessary facility work, "We have school buildings that are on average 56 years old and there’s just some maintenance that needs to be done with them. Roofs wear out over time, we’ve got boilers that are 90 years old in a couple of our more historic school buildings. With growth in the community, we need to do some additions in our middle schools and high schools. And then of course, Ward Rhoden stadium, which is our historic football stadium and track, is really in disrepair." If it passes, the district gets access to a $4 million matching grant from the state. 

If it does fail, Carr says the district will reassess its process but will be forced to ask again, "Probably bring the facilities committee back together again and kind of start over at the drawing board. Do we need to pair down the bond measure? Do we need to talk about it differently in the community? Is there a different way we could be communicating the needs of the district?" He tells KBND the need is not going away, "We’re going to have to go back out at some point - Whether it’s November, whether it’s next year - and ask voters to help us keep our buildings in good shape."