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South Range to use last of new schools’ money to build bus garage
By ROBERT CONNELLY
NORTH LIMA
The South Range Board of Education unanimously approved the construction design for a new bus garage.
Bids for the project will be advertised for four weeks, said Brett Hendricks, of Balog, Steines, Hendricks and Manchester Architects Inc. of Youngstown, the architect firm that built the new South Range schools complex.
BSHM is the architect on the new bus garage, to be built across the gravel drive from the school board offices and where a current shed stands that will be torn down. The project will be funded by the last of the local fund initiative from the new school bond issue.
In 2007, South Range voters approved a 28-year, 7.9-mill bond issue for the building of the new schools to raise $18.3 million, or 48 percent of the cost. The state provided nearly $20 million, or 52 percent.
Specifically, it is between $100,000 and $105,000 for about 3,200 square feet, or triple the current shed that is there now. Hendricks called the design simple for the two-bay door garage, with a third door for storage and space for maintenance work. That money had been earmarked in the new schools bond for a bus garage, and the district had pursued a land purchase for the last few years but that did not work out.
“We’re not doing overhauling of engines or things like that. This is just minor maintenance. The ability to get our buses in and out of the weather two at a time,” said Dennis Dunham, South Range superintendent, of work to be done in the garage. “We can get in there to safely work on buses instead of outside, [such as] headlamp issues, marker lights, windshield wipers so you can get them out of the elements rather than sending buses out for minor services.”
The district now pays about $400 a month to rent the old bus garage in Greenford. The new garage will tie into the utilities of the school board offices along state Route 46 across the street from the school complex. “There’s a variety of things we’re doing” to allow for future work, Hendricks said. That includes a future plan for a paved driveway, which will be done “in time as we come up with funds for a drive,” Dunham said.
Hendricks said he hopes the construction is finished before the end of 2015. Dunham said it could be a two- to three-month build, depending on possible weather and construction issues.
Board member Jeff Good, the legislative liaison for the South Range BOE, said though the schools avoided taking deep cuts in the latest state biennial budget, that doesn’t mean they are in the clear. “If you’re unhappy with what’s going on financially at South Range, contact our legislators,” he said, emphasizing the need for residents to contact the local state legislators on concerns.
District treasurer Jim Phillips said that the Ohio House and Ohio Senate were able to preserve funding that he had feared earlier this year would be cut, as the cuts had been part of Gov.John Kasich’s initial budget proposal.
“I suspect we’ll lose a few thousand [dollars] here and there,” Phillips said, noting a conference in the coming weeks will clarify how much South Range will lose.
Good warned, however, that Kasich has a track record of midbiennium budget reviews, which would be next summer after the 2015-2016 school year.
July was the first meeting of the enforced South Range bylaws for public speaking at meetings. The board entertained questions from the audience for items on the agenda after the board explained each of the items to be voted on. There was then a second portion, public speaking on nonagenda items, and only resident Richard Ferenchak had signed up 10 days in advance for that.