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Poland schools deal with aging infrastructure as consolidation plan becomes official
POLAND
As school-district officials move forward with plans to consolidate school facilities, they are addressing ongoing issues with aging buildings and equipment.
The most serious of those issues is that the heating system at the middle school is in “imminent” risk of failure, Superintendent David Janofa said.
“The middle school basically has a catastrophic situation. Hopefully, we get through the winter,” Janofa said.
The system began to leak about a month ago, causing an electrical failure that required rewiring the basement’s circuit. An HVAC maintenance company says that the system is likely to fail.
The problem has disrupted school, forcing classes to move out of the basement because it is too hot.
The school district is in a difficult position, Janofa said, because though continued repairs are costly and ultimately unsustainable, the cost to replace the heating system is estimated at about $700,000.
Add to that the cost of other repairs needed there and at other buildings, and the price tag becomes an issue.
“The dollar figure is becoming significant,” Janofa said. “The fact of the matter is, we’re going to spend the money we’re going to save through consolidation to repair the buildings we’ve got.”
The school board voted at a meeting Monday night to approve a redistricting plan that includes elimination of an elementary school next school year and building consolidation, in response to a steep decline in enrollment. One component of the plan is to move fifth- and sixth-grade students from the McKinley Elementary building to the middle school for the 2017-18 school year.
Janofa says the plan has the potential to save the district between $2 million and $2.5 million over the next five years.
School district Treasurer Donald Stanovcak says that though the district is projected to have about $3.4 million on hand at the end of the year, that amount likely will drop “significantly.”
“We’re not going to be anywhere close to that,” he said. “These expenditures are going to whittle that down.”
The issue for taxpayers comes down to whether they want the school district to invest in repairs to the existing buildings, or if they are willing to pay the local share for a state program to build new facilities, Janofa said.
The Ohio School Facilities Commission is offering the district 19 cents on the dollar to renovate and replace the district’s facilities. One drafted plan includes construction of a new facility for K-fifth grade, a new facility for sixth-eighth grades and renovations to the high school at a cost of about $56 million. That would require about 6.9-mills from taxpayers.
“We’re not saying ‘Hey let’s build new buildings because we want new buildings.’ We’re going to be spending significant money to occupy [existing] buildings,” Janofa said. “We’re in a very, very delicate situation. Financially, enrollment-wise, and we’re dealing with some significant facility failures.”
The school district will host a town-hall meeting to discuss these issues at 6:30 p.m. Monday at the high school.