The Cape Elizabeth Town Council on Monday will hold a public hearing and a vote on whether to send two school bonds to voters in November. The first is for an $89.9 million project backed by the school board and the second for a $42 million repair proposal the board strongly opposes.

The $89.9 million bond, if placed on the ballot and approved by voters, would be used to build a new middle school, renovate and add on to the elementary school and renovate the high school. The plan is the result of nearly two years of work by the School Building Advisory Committee and was unanimously approved by the school board earlier this month.

The $42 million bond was proposed by Town Council Chair Tim Reiniger ahead of the council’s July 9 meeting. That proposal is short on details except to say it would make necessary repairs and security upgrades, including vestibules, at all three of the town’s schools.

The school board voted 6-0 at a special meeting last week not to support the $42 million bond proposal, with board member Caitlin Sweet absent.

School board members emphasized at the meeting that Reiniger’s proposal hasn’t gone through a proper vetting process and undermines the work of the School Building Advisory Committee and the board.

“My biggest challenge is that there is no project for us to consider,” said school board Vice Chair Phil Saucier. “We haven’t had a presentation, I don’t know what’s in it, I haven’t seen phasing, I haven’t seen it go through the committee process, we haven’t had our architects or the town’s owner’s rep review it. It’s really not a project.”

Board member Cynthia Voltz, who was a co-chair of the School Building Advisory Committee, said options to deal with the town’s aging and overcrowded school buildings that were in the $36 million range were “discarded” by the committee.

“Early concepts that were within this budget range were discarded by the SBAC and there wasn’t any work or any survey support, in the survey we did in the spring, that aligned with this budget range,” Voltz said. “I don’t know what’s behind this.”

Board member Heather Altenburg said she believes “it throws (out) all the work that’s been done with disregard.”

“I think it would be a massive disservice to take all of the work that it’s been to get to this point and not give that work the attention it deserves at referendum,” she said.

Board members also argued that a project that does the minimum would require the town to address its school building problems again within the next 10 years. Some noted while the council has authority to decide how much money voters will be asked to authorize for a project, the school board is responsible for deciding how that money will be spent.

Reiniger emailed the Sentry a message to the community that was also posted on the town’s website this week. In it, he wrote that the $42 million bond proposal is derived from a $36 million estimate Harriman Architects said it would take for necessary repairs and safety upgrades to all three schools. He also cited several meetings this spring where these minimum repairs were included in presentations and said the extra $6 million in the bond amount accounts for contingency costs.

“Throughout the SBAC review process,” Reiniger wrote, “Harriman consistently put forward $10 million for the elementary school, $10 million for the middle school and $16 million for the high school (also known as Option A).”

He also said his proposal “is not meant to undermine or take away from the school board’s proposed new middle school, but rather to provide a minimum alternative should town citizens prefer a smaller tax impact.”

On May 21, the school board heard arguments for and against a $77.9 million proposal and another proposal estimated to cost more than $110 million. Community members and the School Building Advisory Committee were split between the two: Some saw the former proposal as not going far enough, and others found the latter to be too expensive. The board requested the committee come back with a “middle ground” project, which resulted in the $89.9 million proposal.

It was after that May 21 workshop, Reiniger said, that the Town Council developed a contingency policy, that states, “To ensure the health and safety of our students and staff, the Town Council intends to put forth a bond referendum amount sufficient, at a minimum, to cover the costs of building deficiencies, critically needed repairs, and necessary security upgrades at all three schools, as reported by Harriman Architects and the School Building Advisory Committee.”

“To best effectuate this policy, the $42 million bond proposal was brought forward at the July 9 Town Council meeting to be sent to public hearing,” Reiniger wrote.