The Broken Arrow Public Schools Board of Education on Monday unanimously approved a long-term bond plan that could exceed $300 million and which would spread the repayment of the bonds over an eight- to 10-year period.

The proposal for a lease-purchase revenue bond issue is designed not to raise taxes, said Stephen Smith, who is consulting with the district on the bond issue.

The money it would raise is needed to repair many problems with the district’s buildings and other infrastructure and replacing temporary buildings that are used extensively as classrooms.

Although Smith said the amount of the bond issue could be more than $300 million, its approval would allow the district to complete the work in years rather than decades.

“Broken Arrow Schools would have a local trust authority (such as the Broken Arrow Economic Development Authority) issue lease-revenue bonds on its behalf,” Smith stated in a media release. “The school district would then receive the money up front, allowing the school district to meet most of its building needs and infrastructure upgrades in a few years instead of a few decades. This ‘leap frog’ approach would allow the district to finally catch up on a number of capital needs.”

Lease-purchase revenue bonds allow a trust authority to own the facilities and lease them to a school until the facilities are paid for. They allow school districts to work on many projects at the same time, without the need for construction phases or for multiple bond issues.

Smith said that while the bond issue will be for a large amount of money, other school districts, including Bixby, Claremore, Collinsville, Coweta, Jenks, Owasso, Sapulpa, Skiatook, Sperry and Stroud, have used similar plans.

At Monday night’s school board meeting, members approved only the general plan. They did not include the exact amount to be approved by voters or decide when an election will be held on the issue.

“Until we actually make the commitment that we’re going to do this — the lease-purchase revenue bond — there’s really not any sense in doing these, because it’s a totally different structure if we don’t do those (lease-purchase revenue bonds),” Superintendent Gary Gerber said.

Smith said that “at this point in time, we do not have a clear road map of all of the different projects. We’ve got a lot more needs, and there’s going to be a process of what we’re going to address first.”

The school has been eyeing a bond issue for several months, and Smith was hired by the board to examine several bond concepts.

The board also unanimously approved a measure that would allow Gerber to negotiate a compensation fee for Smith based on the use of lease-purchase revenue bond financing, not to exceed 1 percent.