R. R. Branstrom | Daily Press An election worker hands a ballot to a registered voter at Brampton Township Hall in Kipling on Tuesday.

GLADSTONE — Both proposals on the ballot from the Gladstone Area Public Schools failed at the polls Tuesday.

Voters within the school district — which includes Brampton Township, Escanaba Township and the city of Gladstone — were eligible to vote in the local election. The schools had put forward two requests for bonds.

Since the proposals failed, existing school bond payments — on which taxpayers are currently paying 5.75 mills — are likely to be reduced next year. The debt is scheduled to be fully paid off by November 2026, at which point homestead property owners will pay nothing to the school district.

The first ballot question voters saw Tuesday — Proposal I — was for $16.9 million to generally furnish, equip, remodel and develop all four schools in the district (Cameron Elementary, Jones Elementary, Gladstone Middle School and Gladstone High School).

Proposal I got a total of 968 “yes” votes (44.08% of the total turnout) and 1,228 “no” votes (55.92%).

The breakdowns in the various precincts were as follows for Proposal I:

In Gladstone’s first precinct, 250 people (47.17%) voted “yes” and 280 (52.83%) voted “no”; the city’s second precinct saw 233 (38.51%) “yes” votes and 372 (61.49%) “no” votes; Escanaba Township’s first precinct had 252 (49.03%) voters in favor and 262 (50.97%) against; Escanaba Township’s second precinct had 130 (41.4%) in favor and 184 (58.6%) against; in Brampton Township, there were 103 (44.21%) “yes” votes and 130 (55.79%) “no” votes.

Proposal II asked for up to $4.8 million specifically for a multi-purpose addition to the high school. The school district and the Brighter Braves Future group, which advocated for the bonds on the district’s behalf, said that this new construction would also allow Industrial Arts to be reintroduced to the middle school.

Proposal II failed with 914 (41.68%) in favor and 1,279 (58.32%) opposed. Here are the results for Proposal II in the various regions:

Gladstone’s first precinct counted 242 (45.92%) “yes” votes and 285 (54.08%) “no” votes; the city’s second precinct saw 220 (36.24%) for the proposal and 387 (63.76%) against; Escanaba Township’s first precinct had 247 (47.96%) “yes” votes and 268 (52.04%) “no” votes; in Escanaba Township’s second precinct, 114 (36.54%) were in favor and 198 (63.46%) against; in Brampton Township, there were 91 (39.22%) in support and 141 (60.78%) opposed.

The bonds currently in place that will expire in November 2026 are from 1997 for the erection of the high school and the refinancing for the 2012 Cameron kindergarten addition.

If either or both of the proposals had succeeded, the new payments would have continued until May 2039, but were expected to drop to a lower rate than the current 5.75 mills after 2031.

Gladstone Area Public Schools will now have to decide how to move forward to secure funding for the projects they deem highest priority.