Free Money

Winston tastes good like……. Well, you know. Or maybe you don’t. Which would be better for you.
School Treasurer David Combs spent nearly four grueling hours with me and new board member Wendy Myers reviewing the wonderful complexities of school finances Wednesday. As usual, it was both enlightening and frustrating.
The enlightening part comes when one of the many intricacies finally makes sense. Frustrating when there remain what seems a lifetime of such puzzles yet a mystery. Further frustrating is wanting to share with folks what I think I understand but cannot find words to begin the explanation.
And yes, we worked on that 24 page document that explains how the state says they give us $5,732 per student in financial assistance which, after the 24 page formula comes down to our receiving something less than $2,000 in real money. More on that another time. Let’s talk about our buildings.
As discussed on several occasions we are having our buildings reviewed by state authorities to determine the status and recommendations. This follows the exam done in 2002 which was required to obtain our place in the long line of districts to receive state funding assistance to build new buildings and repair older ones.
The general rule is that if the repair costs exceed 66% of the replacement cost, the state will insist on replacement. At the time of our original survey, the recommendation was to eliminate all of our Elementary buildings and the middle school. We were to replace them all with new buildings.
At the same time, we were given number 414 in the line of more than 600 districts. Way down the line.
In the intervening time, many districts have built new buildings and renovated old buildings. Some districts have passed on the opportunity. There is a factor at work here that causes us to be doing the research into our status at this time. It’s called losing the money.
Basically, the state of Ohio has $4.2 Billion of tobacco settlement money that it must use within the next 24 months or it goes up in smoke. Which means we as a district must determine if we want to take our place in line, sell bonds to raise the money and be under contract to build before that 24 month deadline in order to get our share of the money.
If not, we will forever lose the opportunity for state money to participate in the project and any new buildings we need will be 100% our responsibility.
We will share more information as the reports become available and we will share what options we have when we know ourselves. The important factor at the moment is to get the facts so we are working from a solid base of information and understand our options.
To answer one question being asked by some…No, these studies are not costing the district any money. There’s that to be thankful for.
What we know so far is that our buildings have not gotten any younger since the study x years ago. And, the cost of repairs has gone up considerably.
What we also can determine is that security standards of today are virtually impossible if not ridiculously expensive to retrofit into the buildings we have. A safety factor not to be ignored.
Meanwhile, if you have opportunity to visit neighboring districts that have moved in to new facilities, do so and let us know what you think. We think our kids deserve the best to compete in the world. The question is, what does the community think?