Folks who haven’t been through a bond referendum before—and for that matter, those that have—often underestimate how long the formal process takes. Generally, you need to start the formal process by June to have a comfortable schedule working toward a November referendum.
- If you need to start the formal process in June, you also need to complete the informal process of developing the bond plan before then. Those informal processes include working out details with your elected officials and touching base with the LGC staff. It’s certainly not too early to start those discussions.
- If your locality skips governing board meetings in the summer, as some do, then you probably need to start the formal process even earlier than June to stay on track for a November referendum.
- Recent changes in State law restrict bond referenda to dates on which all your voting precincts are otherwise required to be open. That means, in effect, you can only schedule bond referenda for regular primary and general referendum dates. Counties (for the most part) will be restricted to even-numbered years under the new rules.
Contact us at Sanford Holshouser if we can help you with a bond referendum. We are happy to provide a sample schedule of the formal actions required to conduct a bond referendum without your being committed to working with us.