November 20, 2018 at 5:29 p.m.
Plans honed in
Estimate for construction work necessary to reconfigure Jay Schools set at $20.7 million
Plans honed in
The all-in, do-everything renovation estimate was close to $40 million.
The trimmed-down, do-what-needs-to-be done number came in at just over half that amount.
Dana Wannemacher of architecture firm Barton-Coe-Vilamaa on Monday presented Jay School Board with updated plans, at an estimated cost of $20.7 million, for work throughout the corporation to accommodate consolidation from the current eight buildings to six.
“We’re getting down to the bare bones here on what is necessary to make sure the schools are rightly done for the long term,” said Jay Schools superintendent Jeremy Gulley.
The information marked the final step in a year-long process the board tasked Gulley with in late 2017 to present options for further cost reductions, following the closures of the Pennville and Judge Hayne elementary school buildings, in the face of declining enrollment and thus declining revenue. The board is expected to make a decision on how to move forward at its Dec. 10 meeting.
Wannemacher laid out the scope of work and the projected cost to allow for the following:
•Shifting all seventh and eighth graders to Jay County High School
•Turning East Jay Middle School into a third through sixth grade facility
•Changing West Jay Middle School to a kindergarten through sixth grade building
•Making Bloomfield and Redkey elementary schools kindergarten through sixth grade as well
•Using the former General Shanks Elementary School building for preschool and the administrative offices
•Closing the Westlawn Elementary School building and the current administrative office on Tyson Road
The bulk of the work — more than two-thirds of the total price tag at $14.9 million — would be at Jay County High School. The biggest chunk of that would be used to renovate the current information media center (IMC) into classrooms to house seventh and eighth graders. The area would be segregated from the rest of the building.
High school work would also include a new locker room on the southwest side of the auxiliary gym, renovations for the current girls locker room, dividing a few of the larger classrooms into two, creating a secure entrance with separate doors to the seventh/eighth grade area and the high school area, and installing new fire alarms and a public address system.
If the school board decides to go ahead with the consolidation plan, construction would be slated to begin in summer 2019 on the new locker room and the section of the high school to be used by ninth through 12th graders. Completing those tasks by August 2019 would leave the IMC area clear for construction during the school year without disrupting students. The entrance and office renovations would then be completed during summer 2020 to allow for the new configuration to go into effect for the 2020-21 school year.
See Plans page 2
The all-in, do-everything renovation estimate was close to $40 million.
The trimmed-down, do-what-needs-to-be done number came in at just over half that amount.
Dana Wannemacher of architecture firm Barton-Coe-Vilamaa on Monday presented Jay School Board with updated plans, at an estimated cost of $20.7 million, for work throughout the corporation to accommodate consolidation from the current eight buildings to six.
“We’re getting down to the bare bones here on what is necessary to make sure the schools are rightly done for the long term,” said Jay Schools superintendent Jeremy Gulley.
The information marked the final step in a year-long process the board tasked Gulley with in late 2017 to present options for further cost reductions, following the closures of the Pennville and Judge Hayne elementary school buildings, in the face of declining enrollment and thus declining revenue. The board is expected to make a decision on how to move forward at its Dec. 10 meeting.
Wannemacher laid out the scope of work and the projected cost to allow for the following:
•Shifting all seventh and eighth graders to Jay County High School
•Turning East Jay Middle School into a third through sixth grade facility
•Changing West Jay Middle School to a kindergarten through sixth grade building
•Making Bloomfield and Redkey elementary schools kindergarten through sixth grade as well
•Using the former General Shanks Elementary School building for preschool and the administrative offices
•Closing the Westlawn Elementary School building and the current administrative office on Tyson Road
The bulk of the work — more than two-thirds of the total price tag at $14.9 million — would be at Jay County High School. The biggest chunk of that would be used to renovate the current information media center (IMC) into classrooms to house seventh and eighth graders. The area would be segregated from the rest of the building.
High school work would also include a new locker room on the southwest side of the auxiliary gym, renovations for the current girls locker room, dividing a few of the larger classrooms into two, creating a secure entrance with separate doors to the seventh/eighth grade area and the high school area, and installing new fire alarms and a public address system.
If the school board decides to go ahead with the consolidation plan, construction would be slated to begin in summer 2019 on the new locker room and the section of the high school to be used by ninth through 12th graders. Completing those tasks by August 2019 would leave the IMC area clear for construction during the school year without disrupting students. The entrance and office renovations would then be completed during summer 2020 to allow for the new configuration to go into effect for the 2020-21 school year.
Estimates for work at the other four buildings involved are $3.2 million for West Jay, $1.4 million for Bloomfield, $1.2 million for East Jay and $103,620 for Redkey. (East already underwent extensive renovations this summer.) Work at each of those schools would include creating a secure entrance, and playgrounds would be added at East Jay and West Jay. Restrooms would also be added at West Jay for the kindergarten and preschool classrooms. At Bloomfield, the office would be moved and the current office modified, the media center would be divided to create a smaller media center and a new sixth grade classroom, and the exterior would get new light fixtures.
Gulley asked the board to consider the reorganization plan after business manager Brad DeRome laid out the corporation’s financial outlook. There is a budget surplus expected for this year, but without any changes, he said, that will quickly change. His projections showed minor deficit spending for 2019 followed by growing deficits to about a half million dollars in 2020 and $700,000 in 2021.
“Clearly, whether you reorganize or don’t, those kinds of deficits are not tolerable,” said Gulley. “So reductions in spending will happen. …
“What is the best way to achieve those spending reductions that makes sense for the long term?”
In comparison, DeRome said, if the reorganization plan is put in place, there will be deficit spending in 2020 but the corporation would be back to a budget surplus in 2021. The numbers are based on expected savings from the building closures — they would result in reductions of 11 certified staff, two administrators and a similar number of support staff positions — and continued projections of enrollment decline. (Revised estimates by Jerry McKibben of McKibben Demographics show enrollment leveling off briefly in the early 2020s before declining again to about 2,900 by 2028. Current enrollment is 3,130.)
Without building closures, Gulley said, features such as team teaching, block scheduling Reading Recovery and other programs would be in jeopardy.
“In all reality, we can do it now and proceed, or we can delay it, cut the programs, and in three or four years it’ll cost more money to do it and the same thing is going to have to be done,” said board president Phil Ford.
Gulley noted that such issues are not unique to Jay County. East Central Indiana as a whole has lost 13 percent of its student population in the last decade, he said. And he pointed to other construction projects to facilitate building consolidation, including $80 million of work in Huntington County.
Board members Kristi Betts, Mike Shannon, Beth Krieg, Cory Gundrum, Krista Muhlenkamp, Ron Laux and Ford also heard from Mike Therber, who presented options for a $20-million bond to pay for the renovations. Those range from repayment over a 20-year period (the longest allowable in Indiana) or alternate “wrap-around” payment schedules that would serve to keep total annual debt service payments flat over time, with repayment complete by the early 2030s. The corporation has two significant chunks of debt service payments from previous renovation work at JCHS and East Jay, about $1.4 and $2.1 million annually apiece, that will come off the books after 2027.
In looking at the impact on local property taxes, Therber estimated during the hardest-hit year the rate for debt service would increase from the current 36 cents per $1,000 of assessed valuation to 59 cents. The result for a property valued at $100,000 would be an increase in annual property tax of $82.23.
The trimmed-down, do-what-needs-to-be done number came in at just over half that amount.
Dana Wannemacher of architecture firm Barton-Coe-Vilamaa on Monday presented Jay School Board with updated plans, at an estimated cost of $20.7 million, for work throughout the corporation to accommodate consolidation from the current eight buildings to six.
“We’re getting down to the bare bones here on what is necessary to make sure the schools are rightly done for the long term,” said Jay Schools superintendent Jeremy Gulley.
The information marked the final step in a year-long process the board tasked Gulley with in late 2017 to present options for further cost reductions, following the closures of the Pennville and Judge Hayne elementary school buildings, in the face of declining enrollment and thus declining revenue. The board is expected to make a decision on how to move forward at its Dec. 10 meeting.
Wannemacher laid out the scope of work and the projected cost to allow for the following:
•Shifting all seventh and eighth graders to Jay County High School
•Turning East Jay Middle School into a third through sixth grade facility
•Changing West Jay Middle School to a kindergarten through sixth grade building
•Making Bloomfield and Redkey elementary schools kindergarten through sixth grade as well
•Using the former General Shanks Elementary School building for preschool and the administrative offices
•Closing the Westlawn Elementary School building and the current administrative office on Tyson Road
The bulk of the work — more than two-thirds of the total price tag at $14.9 million — would be at Jay County High School. The biggest chunk of that would be used to renovate the current information media center (IMC) into classrooms to house seventh and eighth graders. The area would be segregated from the rest of the building.
High school work would also include a new locker room on the southwest side of the auxiliary gym, renovations for the current girls locker room, dividing a few of the larger classrooms into two, creating a secure entrance with separate doors to the seventh/eighth grade area and the high school area, and installing new fire alarms and a public address system.
If the school board decides to go ahead with the consolidation plan, construction would be slated to begin in summer 2019 on the new locker room and the section of the high school to be used by ninth through 12th graders. Completing those tasks by August 2019 would leave the IMC area clear for construction during the school year without disrupting students. The entrance and office renovations would then be completed during summer 2020 to allow for the new configuration to go into effect for the 2020-21 school year.
See Plans page 2
The trimmed-down, do-what-needs-to-be done number came in at just over half that amount.
Dana Wannemacher of architecture firm Barton-Coe-Vilamaa on Monday presented Jay School Board with updated plans, at an estimated cost of $20.7 million, for work throughout the corporation to accommodate consolidation from the current eight buildings to six.
“We’re getting down to the bare bones here on what is necessary to make sure the schools are rightly done for the long term,” said Jay Schools superintendent Jeremy Gulley.
The information marked the final step in a year-long process the board tasked Gulley with in late 2017 to present options for further cost reductions, following the closures of the Pennville and Judge Hayne elementary school buildings, in the face of declining enrollment and thus declining revenue. The board is expected to make a decision on how to move forward at its Dec. 10 meeting.
Wannemacher laid out the scope of work and the projected cost to allow for the following:
•Shifting all seventh and eighth graders to Jay County High School
•Turning East Jay Middle School into a third through sixth grade facility
•Changing West Jay Middle School to a kindergarten through sixth grade building
•Making Bloomfield and Redkey elementary schools kindergarten through sixth grade as well
•Using the former General Shanks Elementary School building for preschool and the administrative offices
•Closing the Westlawn Elementary School building and the current administrative office on Tyson Road
The bulk of the work — more than two-thirds of the total price tag at $14.9 million — would be at Jay County High School. The biggest chunk of that would be used to renovate the current information media center (IMC) into classrooms to house seventh and eighth graders. The area would be segregated from the rest of the building.
High school work would also include a new locker room on the southwest side of the auxiliary gym, renovations for the current girls locker room, dividing a few of the larger classrooms into two, creating a secure entrance with separate doors to the seventh/eighth grade area and the high school area, and installing new fire alarms and a public address system.
If the school board decides to go ahead with the consolidation plan, construction would be slated to begin in summer 2019 on the new locker room and the section of the high school to be used by ninth through 12th graders. Completing those tasks by August 2019 would leave the IMC area clear for construction during the school year without disrupting students. The entrance and office renovations would then be completed during summer 2020 to allow for the new configuration to go into effect for the 2020-21 school year.
Estimates for work at the other four buildings involved are $3.2 million for West Jay, $1.4 million for Bloomfield, $1.2 million for East Jay and $103,620 for Redkey. (East already underwent extensive renovations this summer.) Work at each of those schools would include creating a secure entrance, and playgrounds would be added at East Jay and West Jay. Restrooms would also be added at West Jay for the kindergarten and preschool classrooms. At Bloomfield, the office would be moved and the current office modified, the media center would be divided to create a smaller media center and a new sixth grade classroom, and the exterior would get new light fixtures.
Gulley asked the board to consider the reorganization plan after business manager Brad DeRome laid out the corporation’s financial outlook. There is a budget surplus expected for this year, but without any changes, he said, that will quickly change. His projections showed minor deficit spending for 2019 followed by growing deficits to about a half million dollars in 2020 and $700,000 in 2021.
“Clearly, whether you reorganize or don’t, those kinds of deficits are not tolerable,” said Gulley. “So reductions in spending will happen. …
“What is the best way to achieve those spending reductions that makes sense for the long term?”
In comparison, DeRome said, if the reorganization plan is put in place, there will be deficit spending in 2020 but the corporation would be back to a budget surplus in 2021. The numbers are based on expected savings from the building closures — they would result in reductions of 11 certified staff, two administrators and a similar number of support staff positions — and continued projections of enrollment decline. (Revised estimates by Jerry McKibben of McKibben Demographics show enrollment leveling off briefly in the early 2020s before declining again to about 2,900 by 2028. Current enrollment is 3,130.)
Without building closures, Gulley said, features such as team teaching, block scheduling Reading Recovery and other programs would be in jeopardy.
“In all reality, we can do it now and proceed, or we can delay it, cut the programs, and in three or four years it’ll cost more money to do it and the same thing is going to have to be done,” said board president Phil Ford.
Gulley noted that such issues are not unique to Jay County. East Central Indiana as a whole has lost 13 percent of its student population in the last decade, he said. And he pointed to other construction projects to facilitate building consolidation, including $80 million of work in Huntington County.
Board members Kristi Betts, Mike Shannon, Beth Krieg, Cory Gundrum, Krista Muhlenkamp, Ron Laux and Ford also heard from Mike Therber, who presented options for a $20-million bond to pay for the renovations. Those range from repayment over a 20-year period (the longest allowable in Indiana) or alternate “wrap-around” payment schedules that would serve to keep total annual debt service payments flat over time, with repayment complete by the early 2030s. The corporation has two significant chunks of debt service payments from previous renovation work at JCHS and East Jay, about $1.4 and $2.1 million annually apiece, that will come off the books after 2027.
In looking at the impact on local property taxes, Therber estimated during the hardest-hit year the rate for debt service would increase from the current 36 cents per $1,000 of assessed valuation to 59 cents. The result for a property valued at $100,000 would be an increase in annual property tax of $82.23.
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