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Poland schools coming back to voters for new school money
POLAND
The school district will go back to voters in August for approval of a bond issue and levy to build a new school that voters turned down in the November general election.
The school board at a meeting this week approved a resolution to submit to voters for approval issuance of bonds in the amount of $28,265,910 for facility upgrades. The measure also includes levy of an additional 0.5-mill tax for maintenance of the planned building.
Board of education President Richard “Beau” Weaver said the board decided to move forward with a special election because it’s the last chance for the district to take advantage of the 19 percent funding-share the Ohio Facilities Construction Commission offered the district. The district previously entered into a partnership with the state for the proposed $35 million project to build a new kindergarten-through-eighth-grade school.
The special election “is our last opportunity to have that issue on the ballot before the state funding goes away,” said Weaver. “We had to take action now to get that on the ballot.”
In light of the measure’s defeat last year (with 62 percent of voters against it), Weaver said the district will pursue a different approach in selling it to voters, but details of that approach have not yet been ironed out.
The board also has yet to determine a plan for the district’s current school buildings. In the run-up to the November election, the district announced it likely would raze old buildings, but Weaver said a new plan is still up in the air.
In other business, the board approved a new five-year contract with Superintendent David Janofa. The contract, which begins Aug. 1 and ends July 31, 2021, gives Janofa a starting salary of $114,000, a nearly 10 percent raise.
The contract also includes 2.5 percent raises each year, Weaver said. Under Janofa’s original contract with the district (he started there in 2013), his salary reportedly remained set at $104,000 over that three-year period, Weaver said.