SHARON School board to borrow additional $3 million

The bond issue will cost the average residential taxpayer about $30 more a year.
By HAROLD GWIN
VINDICATOR SHARON BUREAU
SHARON, Pa. -- The Sharon City School Board will borrow an additional $3.175 million to complete the renovation/expansion of the middle-senior high school and make improvements to Bennett Educational Service Center.
The board, meeting in special session Monday, committed itself to borrowing the money through a bond issue to be approved next week but decided to hold off finalizing plans for renovations at Case Avenue Elementary School.
The architect's estimates for the work at Case Avenue stand at $7.6 million, and the board appeared unwilling to commit itself to that amount of borrowing at this point.
The district needs to finish the high school before starting the next project, said School Director Linda Valentino, and the majority agreed with her.
The vote was 7-1 with Pamela Corini casting the dissenting vote and Lora Adams-King absent.
Corini said she voted no because the $3.175 million includes about $359,000 in changes to the middle-high school locker rooms that weren't part of the original project. She said she can't see spending that amount of money on a change order for the middle-high school when Case Avenue needs some basic building improvements. The district won't get any state reimbursement on that change order, she said.
2-mill increase needed
Jim Wolf, district business manager, said the new bond issue will require a property tax millage increase of about 2 mills to pay off the debt.
That's 2 "new" mills.
Mercer County changed its property tax assessment ratio from 33.3 percent to 100 percent this year, tripling the value of a single mill of property tax. That means 2 new mills is the equivalent of 6 mills at last year's tax rate.
Wolf said the 2-mill increase will cost the average residential taxpayer $30 more per year.
The borrowing will cover about $1.9 million needed to complete the high school project, $525,000 for the Educational Service Center, which houses central administrative offices, and about $400,000 in change orders for the middle-high school.
Those change orders were also approved Monday.
It should also be enough to cover the estimated $115,000-$155,000 cost of a 50-camera security system for the middle-high school, if the board decides to buy that system.
Sharon has already borrowed $28 million to renovate Musser and West Hill elementary schools and to start the middle-senior high school project.
The school board has also enacted 13 mills of property taxes, at the old value, to help pay off that debt.