According to unofficial election results, the Fox School District's $18.5 million dollar bond issue passed Tuesday night with 67 percent of the voters in favor of the bond.

The bond issue will allow the district to buy technology equipment, repair and improve school buildings, buy furniture, purchase school buses and convert existing athletic facilities into multipurpose facilities. Click here for details on the bond issue and a list of projects. Every building in the district is slated for some kind of improvement.

Tim Crutchley, the Assistant Superintendent of School Services, said that its been about ten years since Fox asked the voters for funding. The most recent major project the district built—a new middle school in Antonia—was completed without bond money or a tax increase.

“We didn’t need to ask for an increase—we did it all straight from savings and retiring debt. That was pretty amazing,” he said. The new school cost $15 million to build and opened in 2010.

Crutchley also said that the district was confident that the voters would back their school district with this bond issue. The district did not pay for a poll to test the waters first, like some larger St. Louis County school might feel necessary.

“We just feel that’s more money going out the door,” he said. He said it was “a whole lot cheaper” to just put the bond issue on the ballot and see if the voters would approve it.

Crutchley said that after the bond is approved the district will firm up their plans for the improvements, which are slated for completion in the 2014-2015 school year. He said the district has an estimated budget for about $16 million of bond money.

“We can’t bid it out until it passes,” he said of the bond money.

He said the district allowed extra room in its budget so all the projects they promised to complete could be finished, even if bids come back higher than expected.

“If projects come in under budget or on budget, we can do extra things,” he said. He said he had a wish list of long range improvements that could easily take $100 million to complete.