By Gene Robbins, Managing Editor
School board members have taken another step in arranging financing for two major repair projects — repaving the middle school parking lot and replacing the high school artificial turf athletic field.
Following an auditing of finances at the end of the school year, the board determined Sept. 21 it had enough in surplus to be able to move $1 million into its capital reserve. That brings the account for major facility projects to about $1.8 million, school officials said.
The total price to repave the lot and replace the artificial field amounts to about $2 million. The projects have tags of about $1.4 million for the repaving and $600,000 for the field.
The school plans to vote, probably next month, to place a referendum — with specific dollar figures — before the public on March 8 to ask for approval to borrow the full $2 million. The district believes it will be eligible for 40 percent reimbursement in debt service aid from the state government. The remainder would come out of the expanded capital reserve account. The board projects no new property taxes would have to be raised. The short-term note would be paid off in one year.
The school board had previously authorized its architect, Gregory Somjen, to draw schematic engineering plans to rebuild the pothole-ridden school lot, whose lack of drainage means icing in the winter. The plans call for a reconfiguration of traffic flow, but won’t change the overall size of the paved lot.
The school board believes the turf field is in the last year of being deemed safe enough on which to play.
Some of the money to be moved from surplus comes from energy-savings projects that brought financial benefit to the district in the form of lower energy bills.
The target period for the work on both the lot and turf field is the summer of 2016.
