The new-and-reduced Donegal School District referendum comes with little rancor or fluff.

Voters will be asked Nov. 3 to vote on a new high school only.

The school will be "pretty basic," promised Steve Cafrelli, president of the school board. But it will well serve the most urgent needs, including retiring the modular classrooms appended to the existing structure.

The price tag will be $47.9 million or less, not even half that of the $114 million multibuilding overhaul defeated soundly in a special election last January.

Unlike the earlier proposal, widely viewed as grandiose and crushingly expensive to taxpayers, Plan B has not sparked confrontations or strident front-yard sloganeering.

"It has been quieter," said Cafrelli, who nevertheless declined to speculate on the voting outcome. "Quite honestly, I'm not exactly sure what that means at this point in time."

School district officials say they've worked hard to incorporate citizen input.

A final public meeting on the plan is scheduled for 7 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 29, in Donegal High School Auditorium.

The district recently mailed fliers pointing out that low-income homeowners will receive a rebate of up to $650 a year to offset increased taxes.

The promise of better energy efficiency and competitive construction costs make this a good time to build a school to accommodate 1,200 students, district officials contend.

They say they'll address updates of other aging Donegal buildings later, without future referendums.

"We're hoping the community will partner with us," said district Superintendent Shelly Riedel.

But the plan isn't a shoo-in, apparently.

There's general consensus that 1950s-era Donegal High is crowded and technologically outmoded and needs to be replaced, said Pat Post, who served on the school board from 1999-2007. But the economy has shed more jobs since January.

Expecting people to assume thousands of dollars of additional school-tax burden over the next 20 years is dicier now than it was last winter, she added.

Post, a vocal critic of Donegal administrators and school board members, opposed the first referendum as part of the citizens group REACT, Refocus on Education, Accountability, Children and Taxpayers.

She said she and her friends remain strongly in the camp of "make do with what we've got.

"It will be very interesting to see how it comes out," she said. "I probably will be one who is up at midnight looking at the results."

Squished no more?
The first ballot question called for building a new high school and elementary school within five years, renovating three other buildings and replacing maintenance facilities and athletic fields.

The numerous line items included $1.2 million for artificial turf.

Such refinements stretched "far beyond needs into a long list of wants," said Mount Joy Borough resident Shelby Chunko, who voted nay earlier this year.

"People weren't opposed to upgrading the facilities," Chunko added in an e-mail, but they recoiled from doing it all "in one fell swoop."

Workshops and roundtables held by the district in recent months reinforced those sentiments.

People talked, said Amy Swartz, the district's business manager. Officials listened.

One resident suggested chopping two of the four wings from the proposed high school's main floor. The architects, Crabtree, Rohrbaugh & Associates, did just that, Swartz said, creating a smaller footprint that will enhance student traffic flow.

Also among the features edited out of the original blueprint, according to Riedel, were the indoor running area and the upper-level seating area in the gym and the balcony in the auditorium.

Parking spaces were trimmed back, and the wrestling room will either be eliminated or combined with the auxiliary gym to save space.

Indeed, Swartz said, "We've had some concern from the public that we cut too much."

Construction, if approved, would be bid out late next year. The school would be built so it can be expanded to handle more students.

But even a Spartan conceptual design will take money to realize.

According to the schedule mailed by the district, a homeowner with an assessed property value of $150,000 would face a tax increase of $125 each year for three years. He would then pay $375 in years four through 20, whereupon the extra tax would cease.

People disproportionately affected by the referendum would get a break if they meet the district's definition of low income and they're:

• Age 65 or over.

• A widow or widower 50 or over.

• Permanently disabled and 18 or over.

A successful referendum would let the district fund future renovations with "minimal impact to property taxes," according to the mailing.

Meanwhile, patches have been applied.

Teeming Maytown Elementary, which had been high on the replacement list, was instead given a new boiler and refurbished roof this year.

The upgrades will keep it going three to five years, said Steve Gault, who was appointed last March to fill a school board vacancy.

Students from congested classes could be diverted to the existing high school once a new building is up, Gault said.

The construction project is a long-term community investment that nonetheless might pain some, he added.

"I'm going through that [income decrease] with my job, as well, things slowing down."

The choice is the voters', he said.

Chunko, who plans to attend Thursday's informational meeting, said she's heard no grumbling.

"I'll go to hear where things stand," she said, "though I expect I'll vote for it this time around."