BREMERTON — The projected Bremerton School District levy proposal for 2016 is for a total of $8.455 million dollars.

The projection was presented to the school board at the Oct. 16 meeting. In the next month, it will be honed and finalized, and presented in its final form to the board at the Nov. 12 meeting. If approved the proposal will be filed with the Kitsap County Auditor by Dec. 11, in order to have a measure on the Feb. 9, 2016, ballot.

If approved, households can expect to pay based on a $5.99 rate per thousand, increased from the previous Capital Levy, passed in 2012, which had households paying $5.82 per thousand.

“We have been very successful for many years in passing our levy and bonds,” said Patty Glaser, public information officer for the school district.

The presentation to the board broke down the projected proposal into the projects that they hope to fund with the levy, which were split into three categories: equity, required and warranted. The committee working to put this proposal together said they considered student safety, asset preservation and instructional and community space when drafting the proposal.

The equity proposals, intended to provide Bremerton students the same opportunities as other districts, total $1.1 million and include classroom computer systems, updating elementary play structures and replacing classroom carpets in the district.

The required proposals total $5.255 million dollars. These projects are: fire system upgrades for the View Ridge, Armin Jahr and Mountain View buildings; school site security cameras; replacing the telephone system; removing unusable facilities at the East High campus; maintenance on the roofs at the Kitsap Lake, View Ridge, Crownhill and administration buildings; recommissioning HVAC systems; and as-yet-undecided real estate contingencies or money for portable buildings.

The warranted proposals total $2.1 million, and include refreshing the performing arts center and installing turf fields throughout the district.

The turf fields were of particular interest at the Oct. 16 school board meeting. During public comments, athletic director Jeff Barton and Bremerton High School teacher Nate Gillam both spoke about the importance of turf fields.

Barton said the two major reasons why turf fields are important are for safety reasons and because the natural grass of the fields can make the fields unplayable due to rain and other field damage, sometimes requiring games that were supposed to be at home to be held away. He also said Bremerton High is one of the few high schools in the area without turf on the field.

Gillam, who has been asked by the district in the past to research the benefits and costs of turf, said the most important reason is student safety.

“We have been playing on a surface the last two to three years that is unsafe,” Gillam said. “Some of the things that I’ve found in my research are, the No. 1 thing is improved safety.

“I know it’s a word that’s thrown around a lot these days. Players … risk significant injuries on this surface. It’s not level anymore.”

He added it can be easy to look at the cost ($400,000 for turf at Knights Field; $800,000 for Memorial Stadium; and $600,000 for the upper field) and think it’s not worth it, but that people “can’t be afraid of big scary dollars … because what is going to happen is, you’re going to lower overhead costs.”

According to his research, Gillam said field maintenance for artificial fields is around $5,000 a year. He said that the district is currently spending somewhere around $35,000 a year maintaining the fields as they are.

He also said that turf fields are “revenue generating.”

“That’s hopefully the key phrase, is that hopefully this can be something that can become revenue generating,” Gillam said.

He said turf fields can open doors to host things like youth camps over the summer, which could generate a lot of money for the district. He said in the past, they’ve had to turn away people because summer organizations would damage the fields too much before the school year even started.

“People are ready for this,” Gillam said.

The presentation of the finalized levy proposal will take place at the regular school board meeting, 5 p.m. Nov. 12 at the administration building, 134 Marion Ave., Bremerton. For more information, visit www.bremer tonschools.org.