Three options still in play (12/12/06)

FORT RECOVERY - Three options are still on the table as this community continues to weigh plans for Fort Recovery High School.

About 75 people were on hand Monday night for the third in a series of "community engagement" meetings as Fort Recovery considers whether to accept construction assistance from the Ohio School Facilities Commission.

While in Indiana school construction projects are paid for entirely by local property taxes, Ohio has developed a system that can provide a significant chunk of state funding for construction. But that assistance is available only if school corporations agree to meet OSFC guidelines and standards in building projects.

"The OSFC has made us an offer of some dollars," superintendent Dave Riel said Monday.

If the school system accepts those dollars, it would have to play by the state's rules. If it chose not to accept state assistance, it could continue to renovate the high school facility without following OSFC construction guidelines but would have to bear the entire cost.

As outlined Monday, three options now face the school board:

•Adding a high school wing to Fort Recovery Elementary/Middle School, which was constructed in 1997. That would result in a pre-kindergarten through grade 12 facility.

Some portions of the existing building would be re-worked, and an all-purpose room would be added for physical education classes. The newer gymnasium at the high school would be kept intact and used for high school basketball games and programs, but it could not be used for instructional purposes. That's estimated to cost about $3.2 million, with OSFC providing a little over $1 million and the balance coming from a bond issue to be repaid by property taxes.

•A major renovation of the newer portion of the current high school building. That could also include renovation of the administrative offices. The estimated pricetag for renovation is more than $6.9 million, but OSFC assistance would be the same as the first option, a little over $1 million.

Both of these options call for the demolition of the 1935 portion of Fort Recovery High School.

• Going it alone. The school system could say, "Thanks but no thanks" to OSFC and continue to make renovations on its own without any assistance from the state.

"If you want their money, there are rules," meeting facilitator Nancy R. Myers told the group.

OSFC sets standards, for instance, on square footage of construction per pupil and insists of fire suppression systems which can be extremely costly.

"Is there an urgency that we need to do something to the high school? Absolutely not," said Riel.

And if the school system defers on accepting OSFC assistance, it does not rule out working with OSFC in the future, though there are no guarantees of funding from the state. Fort Recovery deferred acceptance of OSFC assistance last year.

OSFC dates from 1997, and its pilot project was construction of Fort Recovery Elementary/Middle School. The commission ranks school systems on the basis of their assessed valuation and determines the level of its assistance based upon the debt load each school system is carrying.

"You have to be in debt at a certain level in order for them to help you," said Riel. "What they're saying to us is you need to be in debt $4.4 million for us to work with you."

Currently, the school system has net bonded indebtedness of about $2.2 million.

Riel repeatedly cautioned that all of the numbers being discussed are likely to change. The school system's assessed valuation, estimated construction costs, and the precise amount available from the OSFC will be different before any project could move forward.

Public discussion of the options will continue at a Jan. 16, 2007 meeting in the auditeria of the elementary/middle school.[[In-content Ad]]