Boardman school board to borrow $6M
By Denise Dick
The plan would eliminate classroom trailers at two elementary schools.
BOARDMAN — The school board plans to borrow nearly $6 million to be repaid over 30 years to build a multipurpose sports complex, add classrooms and make improvements to two elementary schools.
The board voted 4-0 on Monday to authorize James Massey, district director of operations, to advertise for bids for construction of a sports complex behind Glenwood Middle School. Board member Kenneth Beraduce was absent.
The estimated cost is $481,650. The 7,300-square-foot complex will be used by the baseball, track and wrestling teams, Massey said.
“Our wrestling team’s been practicing all over Boardman,” he said.
The district has rented space in the Boardman Plaza and on Bev Road in recent years to allow the wrestling team an area to practice because so many other sports teams use the high school in the afternoon and evening that there wasn’t room for the wrestlers.
Voters rejected a 3.5-mill bond issue in 2007 that would have allowed the district to borrow about $51.5 million through the sale of bonds for building improvements. The amount was to be repaid with interest over 28 years.
The money was to renovate all of the district school buildings as well as build a sports complex and make improvements to the high school athletic stadium and field.
Board members voted in May 2008 to instead pursue the 30-year loan to make improvements.
The district plans to use a portion of the money from a capital-improvement levy renewed in 2007 to repay the 30-year loan.
The levy generates about $900,000 per year, but Niklaus Amstutz, a board member, said about $200,000 of that amount will be kept in case an unforeseen problem arises.
Massey said that part of the money borrowed also will be used to add classrooms at Stadium Drive and Robinwood Lane elementary schools. That portion of the plan is expected to be voted on at a future board meeting. The amount includes $2.3 million at Robinwood and $2.5 million at Stadium Drive. “We want to add six to eight classrooms,” Massey said.
The plan is to get rid of the classrooms in trailers, upgrade the media centers and add special-education rooms, he said.
Kim Poma, board president, said the latest plans are considerably scaled back from what was planned if the bond issue had passed.
The classroom trailers at the two elementary schools were brought in many years ago and intended to be temporary.
“We just felt that we owed to those families and to those kids to get them out of those trailers,” Poma said.