Refinancing will fund HS upgrades

BERNE — South Adams plans to refinance its debt on the new middle school/elementary school and use the interest rate savings to fund an estimated $2 million in renovations and improvements to the high school.
“We think we’ll be able to recapture about $2 million” due to lower interest rates, superintendent Scott Litwiller told the South Adams School Board on Tuesday.
“This would be a net zero impact on the tax rate,” said Ryan Fetters of Umbaugh and Associates, a certified public accounting firm consulting on the project. “The annual payments would be basically the same, and there would be no extension of the debt.”
South Adams currently pays about $1.7 million annually on the middle school/elementary school bond issue. Those bonds, the only ones outstanding for the school corporation, will be paid off in 2032.
Umbaugh estimates potential savings from refinancing of about $153,000 a year. That amount would be used to service a new bond issue of about $2 million for work on the high school.
Litwiller outlined a number of renovations and improvements that might be possible with that infusion of cash.
“We don’t have details,” he said. “We don’t have blueprints.”
Among the areas that could be addressed:
•Installing new doors and walls in the media center and surrounding classrooms to reduce noise.
•Relocating the high school office to the north entrance from its current location in the middle of the building.
•Enlarging the agriculture classroom.
•Revamping a former industrial arts shop for use as a science lab.
•Enlarging the machine trades shop.
•Building foyers at the main entrances of the high school to improve energy efficiency.
Board members approved a series of four resolutions setting the project in motion on a 5-0 vote with members Julie Mansfield and Amy Orr absent.
Litwiller told the board there have been no new prospects for the former school property at Indiana 218 and U.S. 27 but that the listing agent has been in continued discussions with several parties about a potential “Swiss-themed tourist attraction.”
In other business, the board:
•Approved on final reading a change in the facility use policy that would allow businesses, private groups and individuals to rent school facilities beyond a classroom as long as they can provide proof of liability insurance and pay rental fees.
•Approved revised student handbooks for 2016-17.
•Learned from Litwiller that the community and South Adams alumni had donated $48,000 to upgrade the school’s dugouts.
•Hired Josh Tankersley as a custodian, Jasen Kilsby as a fire and rescue teacher, Jeff Lehman as sponsor/adviser for the class of 2020, Daniel Steffen and Ethan Blomeke as summer student custodians and Andy Brown, J.D. Keller, Curt Amstutz, Steve Tatman, Miryah Boxell and Jason Shuck as summer school teachers.
•Accepted a $1,000 anonymous donation to help elementary school students with physical needs.
•Honored machine trades and auto service technology students who excelled in the state Skills USA competition. Two of those students took first place at the state level and will compete nationally. Noah Lehmann of South Adams took first place in CNC technician competition, and Michael McKinley of Jay County High School took first place in the CNC turning specialist competition.