Board seeking renewal of levy

Voters will be asked to renew the levy for the fifth time.
By PETER H. MILLIKEN
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
WARREN -- The board of education voted to place a renewal levy on the May 2 primary ballot to continue generating the current $1.8 million annually for the next five years.
The operating levy, now at 4.15 mills, was first passed Feb. 4, 1986, and voters are being asked to renew it for the fifth time.
With Trumbull County's property values recently having been reappraised, the school board will ask the county auditor's office to determine what millage is needed to continue generating $1.8 million per year.
Once the auditor certifies the millage needed to generate that amount, the board will act on a second resolution Feb. 14 to place that millage on the ballot, Merri Smith, interim board treasurer, said at Tuesday's board meeting.
"All we're asking the community to do is help us maintain [current funding]. We've been very fiscally accountable. We have not asked for new operating money since 1994," said board member Linda H. Metzendorf.
Time waiver
Superintendent Kathryn Hellweg announced that Susan Tave Zelman, state superintendent of public instruction, has given the school district a waiver of state instructional time requirements for the rest of this school year at Warren G. Harding High School.
At a Jan. 10 school board meeting, Jeff Pegg, president of the Warren Education Association, complained that class periods at Harding were reduced substantially below the one-hour state standard when hot cafeteria lunches were reinstated there earlier this month. The WEA is the district's teachers union. Hellweg said the administration is reviewing issues raised by Pegg.
The board also heard Frank Caputo, district construction project manager, present Southwest Park and the site of the current Jefferson Elementary School as possible locations for the kindergarten-through-eighth-grade building the board plans to build on the city's southwest side.
The board already owns 29 acres that would be used if the Jefferson site is chosen but would have to buy four houses and five vacant lots at an estimated cost of $111,300 to use that site, Caputo said.
The Jefferson site, located along Tod Avenue near the city limits, lends itself to building a compact, energy-efficient building, but students would have to be relocated for up to two school years during construction, Caputo said.
If the building is built on an 18-acre site at Southwest Park along Palmyra Road, the city would provide 15.3 acres of park land and four additional lots on Palmyra Road, but the board would have to buy 10 additional properties along Palmyra Road at an estimated cost of $220,000 and pay higher demolition costs, he added. Both sites have room for a football field, he said.
Metzendorf said the board must select the site this year to keep the construction project on schedule.
Whatever location the board picks would be the site of the fourth new kindergarten-through- eighth-grade building the board plans to build in its $153 million construction project.