43
Fitch levy won't be brought up for a few years
By ROBERT CONNELLY
AUSTINTOWN
The school district will not put a bond back on the ballot to build a new high school for three years at the earliest, after May’s election defeat.
“We’re not going to approach anything with Fitch until probably at least past 2017,” Austintown Schools Superintendent Vincent Colaluca said.
He highlighted some of the main areas of concern within the high school until then.
“We have to find a way to maintain our roof. That’s one of the major issues we have with Fitch, so we will continue to work and put Band-Aids on that. Right now, I think our estimate is $2.5 million,” to replace the roof, Colaluca said. He said the roof was installed in 1996 and “we’re lucky it’s lasted as long as it has.”
Two other areas of concern within the building are the HVAC system and electricity.
This decision comes after the district missed the deadline in May to put the bond issue in front of voters during today’s special election. The bond issue failed 4,311 to 2,239 votes May 6.
The 4.1-mill bond issue was set to raise $46 million over 37 years, the district’s cost after state funding. It would have cost the owner of a $100,000 home about $144 a year.
“We do represent the community and respect their vote,” said Kathy Mock, president of Austintown Board of Education. She added that the board met after May’s vote and decided to hold off on the issue.
Colaluca and Mock both agreed the next time the discussion would include input from the community, staff, and district officials. “We would need to re-evaluate our approach. We will really need to get everyone in a room at the same time to see what we need to improve upon to get the message out.”
The Ohio Facilities Construction Commission had awarded Austintown $31 million, or 47 percent of the cost to build a new Fitch, last August. However, when the district missed the deadline for putting the issue on today’s ballot, it became a “lapsed district,” meaning the state funding was no longer guaranteed.
During the original bond campaign and town hall meetings, organizers said if not passed, the project would only get more expensive. Colaluca explained that they estimate construction costs to go up by 3 percent to 5 percent each year. With the district setting it aside for three years, that means a potential increase of 9 percent to 15 percent, with Austintown still having to pay its 53 percent share of building a new high school.
Colaluca said, “You would hope that the construction costs would stay down, but the good thing is that our economy has turned around and when the economy turns around, there is nothing to hold [costs] down.”
The district is hoping to bridge the gap in 21st-century learning, a major focus of the campaign to pass the bond. The district continually made arguments that Austintown high-school students were falling behind from the new schools that had been built — Austintown Middle School, Austintown Intermediate School and Austintown Elementary School.
The process, if the district does pick the issue back up in 2017, would have the state re-assessing the building to determine the cost of the project. The district would still pay 53 percent of the cost for a new high school. If the issue is picked back up then, voters could see the bond issue on a 2018 ballot, with construction happening in 2020 for two years if approved by voters.