Bond issue to replace aging New Phila schools to reappear on primary ballot
NEW PHILADELPHIA (WJER) school district voters haven’t seen the last of the bond issue that failed in November.
The board of education last Monday passed the first of three resolutions needed to place the $72-million funding request onto the May 6th primary ballot. Superintendent Amy Wentworth says there’s another community meeting tentatively scheduled for January 16th.
“To bring any interested stakeholders from the community back together to kind of weigh in on what they think we need to do with regard to location or how else we can do to better communicate the need that we have for these buildings.”
The proposed bond and state aid would pay for two new schools: a new pre-K through 6th-grade building on the South School property and one for older kids a few years later at a site yet to be determined. The school board last Monday also authorized Wentworth and Treasurer Julie Erwin to negotiate the purchase of property, but nothing’s for certain at this point.
“We always have our eyes open. We’re still not sure exactly where that middle-high school location is, and so we’re just exploring some options right now.”
Meanwhile, Wentworth says they continue to deal with costly maintenance issues at the district’s current aging buildings, which average 70 years old and no longer meet current building safety standards.
“It is an ongoing challenge, and it’s really getting difficult. Just since the bond issue, we had a boiler go out at York Elementary that was incredibly expensive to fix. We’ve got new fire codes, and so there are things that the fire department has brought to our attention where our buildings are so old they are just not compliant with current code.”
If voters approve the bond issue in May, property taxes in the school district would increase by just over $20 monthly for every $100,000 of value. If the request is unsuccessful, Wentworth says the state’s 56-percent share will be recalculated come fall and will likely decrease.