With the nation focused on concerns about Covid-19, the Great Bend USD 428 Board of Education voted unanimously Monday to postpone the district’s bond election indefinitely.

A resolution for a special election was approved in January and an April 28 date was proposed. However, the date was never officially set and the resolution was not delivered to the Barton County Clerk.

Superintendent Khris Thexton briefed the school board at Monday’s meeting, indicating a different date had been discussed.

“We had talked in the past about our bond and we had originally talked about postponing until June 2nd,” Thexton said. The main reason for postponing the election to that date was because there was a possibility that the Legislature might increase the state aid on bond projects approved later.

Now, it appears any increase in state aid would be retroactive to bonds approved since July of 2015, Thexton said.

However, “in light of all the information that’s going around and the uneasiness that’s surrounding the Covid-19 situation, as an administration, we’ve been discussing this and we kind of feel at this time that we should postpone our bond indefinitely until we have a better opportunity to figure out a time that’s a little less volatile," Thexton said. "With all the things that are going on with our country and community, I just think this would be an added stressor that we want to try to reduce at this time.”

Thexton said the district still has a master plan for facilities that it can revisit later.