WCS Seeks To Sell Leesburg School
July 28, 2016 at 4:25 p.m.
By David [email protected]
During the Warsaw School Board meeting Monday night, board member Kent Adams made a motion approving a resolution to sell the school at 101 School St., Leesburg. The motion was unanimously approved.
The resolution states that pursuant to Indiana Code, the school board "finds that it is in the best interest of the school to sell real property known as the Leesburg Elementary School ... to promote economic development in Leesburg or to facilitate compatible land use planning."
Superintendent Dr. Craig Hintz is authorized to make all reasonable inquiries to sell the property.
Chief Financial Officer Kevin Scott said, as a result of the construction of a new Leesburg Elementary on Baseline Road, the former building is unoccupied. In pursuing possible future use of the building, Warsaw Community Schools sought and received a joint appraisal of value. Additionally, he said, WCS sought interest in the building via a special board meeting and ran two advertisements in the Times-Union.
The next step in the process was for the board to state publicly its intent to sell the building for economic development, which it did with the resolution.
As part of the elementary construction project, Scott said, money was budgeted for the demolition of the old Leesburg school. If the building is sold, WCS avoids demolition expenses and gains sale proceeds of the appraisal value of $178,000.
Since WCS would benefit financially, and the community would gain additional tax base and business traffic if the old school is sold for economic development, it would be a win-win for everyone, Scott said.
Scott also presented some budget figures for the board to consider.
The 2010 budget was approximately $66.7 million. Property tax revenue accounted for only about $18.4 million of that for transportation, bus replacement, capital projects, debt service fund and pension debt funds. Beginning in 2009, the state took over all schools' general funds, which are the largest portions of schools' budget.
Scott said the 2009 actual general fund budget was about $40.4 million, with the expected 2010 general fund budget at approximately $41.3 million. After the state reduced schools' budgets because of a decrease in revenue to the state, the 2010 general fund budget for WCS was about $39.4 million, a shortfall of about $1.9 million.
That shortfall will increase to more than $2 million in 2011, another loss to WCS of about $167,141. In addition, the student count for WCS shrank, causing WCS to lose another $84,827.
The reduction in funding for WCS for 2011 will be an additional total of $251,968.
The end-of-year general fund cash balance for 2010 was $4,101,431. From Dec. 31, 2009, to December 31, 2010, the cash balance shrank $433,569.
Other funding losses for WCS include staff development dollars, Migrant dollars totaling $83,000, Stimulus dollars come to the end of the two-year program at the end of this school year, and a shrinkage of the corporation's student count.
This year, the Indiana General Assembly must pass a new two-year budget. Scott said there's a projected $1 billion shortfall for the state. Education for kindergarten to grade 12 is roughly 47 percent of the state budget. Several K-12 initiatives are being considered by the state, too.
Scott presented a list of ideas that could help the corporation's budget. Those include encouraging enrollment growth, federal education jobs fund, economic improvement, state change of rules on silo spending at least on a temporary basis, reauthorization of utility spending from the capital projects fund and additional cost-savings initiatives.
In other business, the school board approved Dani Barkey as the interim assistant principal at Lakeview Middle School.[[In-content Ad]]In the Warsaw Community Schools Transportation Dept. annual report to the school board Monday night, Director Della Swain covered a variety of numbers.
The department has 55 contract drivers, five part-time substitute drivers, eight part-time trip drivers, seven special needs assistants, two substitute special needs assistants, three mechanics, two administrative assistants and one part-time secretary/driver.
To transport students, the department has 67 buses currently, with nine being special needs lift buses. The buses include 51 66-passenger buses, and seven 84-passenger buses. Fifty-five are route buses, six are trip buses, six are substitute buses and there are 49 support vehicles.
Swain said the bus drivers have an average 8.12 years of driving experience. There are 5,999 WCS students eligible for being transported, with 4,456 students actually transported.
Before redistricting in 2010, there were 54 bus routes during the 2009-10 school year. That only increased by one route for the 2010-11 school year. Swain reported there were 615 transfer students during the 2009-10 school year, and 487 this school year.
With all those bus routes plus extracurricular activities, the transportation used 141,341 gallons of fuel in 2009-10. Cost of the fuel was $295,288, with labor costing $91,441 and parts cost $114,019. The cost per mile is $0.463, with the per-student cost being $2.44.
Also during the last school year, total bus fleet miles were 981,765. Extracurricular trips totaled 89,913 miles, with special needs shuttles totaling 56,581. Bus routes accounted for 831,895 miles of the total fleet miles.
The transportation department also provided buses for both sessions of summer school.
Session one ran June 7 to 29. A total of 614 students were transported a total of 14,870 miles for a total cost of $21,150.
Session two ran July 6 to 28, and only high school courses were offered. There were 133 students transported for a total of 5,775 miles traveled at a total cost of $6,917.
Cheryl Cook, transportation department, compared the redistricting proposed student count to the student count if there were no transfers. She said their predictions were not far off, but the one the most off was for Washington Elementary School. The difference was 53 students. She said she is still not sure why the student count without transfers was much lower than the proposed student count.
"Overall," Cook said, "I don't think we did too poorly."
For the school year prior to redistricting, 2009-10, there were 2,479 daily route miles. For this school year, after redistricting, the transportation department has 2,419 daily route miles, a decrease of 60 miles per day. That is a fuel savings of $5,400, according to numbers presented by the transportation department.
During the Warsaw School Board meeting Monday night, board member Kent Adams made a motion approving a resolution to sell the school at 101 School St., Leesburg. The motion was unanimously approved.
The resolution states that pursuant to Indiana Code, the school board "finds that it is in the best interest of the school to sell real property known as the Leesburg Elementary School ... to promote economic development in Leesburg or to facilitate compatible land use planning."
Superintendent Dr. Craig Hintz is authorized to make all reasonable inquiries to sell the property.
Chief Financial Officer Kevin Scott said, as a result of the construction of a new Leesburg Elementary on Baseline Road, the former building is unoccupied. In pursuing possible future use of the building, Warsaw Community Schools sought and received a joint appraisal of value. Additionally, he said, WCS sought interest in the building via a special board meeting and ran two advertisements in the Times-Union.
The next step in the process was for the board to state publicly its intent to sell the building for economic development, which it did with the resolution.
As part of the elementary construction project, Scott said, money was budgeted for the demolition of the old Leesburg school. If the building is sold, WCS avoids demolition expenses and gains sale proceeds of the appraisal value of $178,000.
Since WCS would benefit financially, and the community would gain additional tax base and business traffic if the old school is sold for economic development, it would be a win-win for everyone, Scott said.
Scott also presented some budget figures for the board to consider.
The 2010 budget was approximately $66.7 million. Property tax revenue accounted for only about $18.4 million of that for transportation, bus replacement, capital projects, debt service fund and pension debt funds. Beginning in 2009, the state took over all schools' general funds, which are the largest portions of schools' budget.
Scott said the 2009 actual general fund budget was about $40.4 million, with the expected 2010 general fund budget at approximately $41.3 million. After the state reduced schools' budgets because of a decrease in revenue to the state, the 2010 general fund budget for WCS was about $39.4 million, a shortfall of about $1.9 million.
That shortfall will increase to more than $2 million in 2011, another loss to WCS of about $167,141. In addition, the student count for WCS shrank, causing WCS to lose another $84,827.
The reduction in funding for WCS for 2011 will be an additional total of $251,968.
The end-of-year general fund cash balance for 2010 was $4,101,431. From Dec. 31, 2009, to December 31, 2010, the cash balance shrank $433,569.
Other funding losses for WCS include staff development dollars, Migrant dollars totaling $83,000, Stimulus dollars come to the end of the two-year program at the end of this school year, and a shrinkage of the corporation's student count.
This year, the Indiana General Assembly must pass a new two-year budget. Scott said there's a projected $1 billion shortfall for the state. Education for kindergarten to grade 12 is roughly 47 percent of the state budget. Several K-12 initiatives are being considered by the state, too.
Scott presented a list of ideas that could help the corporation's budget. Those include encouraging enrollment growth, federal education jobs fund, economic improvement, state change of rules on silo spending at least on a temporary basis, reauthorization of utility spending from the capital projects fund and additional cost-savings initiatives.
In other business, the school board approved Dani Barkey as the interim assistant principal at Lakeview Middle School.[[In-content Ad]]In the Warsaw Community Schools Transportation Dept. annual report to the school board Monday night, Director Della Swain covered a variety of numbers.
The department has 55 contract drivers, five part-time substitute drivers, eight part-time trip drivers, seven special needs assistants, two substitute special needs assistants, three mechanics, two administrative assistants and one part-time secretary/driver.
To transport students, the department has 67 buses currently, with nine being special needs lift buses. The buses include 51 66-passenger buses, and seven 84-passenger buses. Fifty-five are route buses, six are trip buses, six are substitute buses and there are 49 support vehicles.
Swain said the bus drivers have an average 8.12 years of driving experience. There are 5,999 WCS students eligible for being transported, with 4,456 students actually transported.
Before redistricting in 2010, there were 54 bus routes during the 2009-10 school year. That only increased by one route for the 2010-11 school year. Swain reported there were 615 transfer students during the 2009-10 school year, and 487 this school year.
With all those bus routes plus extracurricular activities, the transportation used 141,341 gallons of fuel in 2009-10. Cost of the fuel was $295,288, with labor costing $91,441 and parts cost $114,019. The cost per mile is $0.463, with the per-student cost being $2.44.
Also during the last school year, total bus fleet miles were 981,765. Extracurricular trips totaled 89,913 miles, with special needs shuttles totaling 56,581. Bus routes accounted for 831,895 miles of the total fleet miles.
The transportation department also provided buses for both sessions of summer school.
Session one ran June 7 to 29. A total of 614 students were transported a total of 14,870 miles for a total cost of $21,150.
Session two ran July 6 to 28, and only high school courses were offered. There were 133 students transported for a total of 5,775 miles traveled at a total cost of $6,917.
Cheryl Cook, transportation department, compared the redistricting proposed student count to the student count if there were no transfers. She said their predictions were not far off, but the one the most off was for Washington Elementary School. The difference was 53 students. She said she is still not sure why the student count without transfers was much lower than the proposed student count.
"Overall," Cook said, "I don't think we did too poorly."
For the school year prior to redistricting, 2009-10, there were 2,479 daily route miles. For this school year, after redistricting, the transportation department has 2,419 daily route miles, a decrease of 60 miles per day. That is a fuel savings of $5,400, according to numbers presented by the transportation department.
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