Townships Explore Options For Closed Schools

Three Kosciusko County townships asked the Warsaw school board for an extension in deciding whether or not to keep abandoned school buildings.

Trustees and boards for Clay, Lake and Prairie townships asked the board for a six-month extension in making the decision on the school buildings. The Warsaw school board offered the buildings to the townships Aug. 16 and gave township boards 60 days to make a decision.

All three townships held public meetings recently to discuss the disposition of the buildings.

Indiana statute allows school corporations to offer the property "as a gift for park and recreation purposes to the township that owned the property before the school was consolidated."

The elementary schools in Atwood, Silver Lake and Claypool were closed last spring after the end of the 2003-04 school year.

One of the problems with having only 60 days to decide whether or not to accept the Atwood Elementary building, said Julie Goon, Prairie Township trustee, is that the offer was made by Warsaw Community Schools after the townships' budgets already were set and approved by the Kosciusko County council.

"We already have our budget set for 2005, including the tax rate, and it can't be changed," she said.

The townships would not have to pay for the buildings, but the maintenance costs, especially with winter coming up, are prohibitive, said Molly Bradford, Lake Township trustee.

Maintenance costs for the Silver Lake Elementary building would be approximately $40,000 per year, Bradford said, and that does not include insurance, because "you can't get insurance if the building is vacant."

She said the township is investigating grants, but it takes longer than 60 days to apply for grants, and even then, some places that grant funds for historical buildings announce the grant winners only once or twice a year.

Richard Helm, Warsaw attorney, has been retained by all three townships, and said Indiana law does not impose a 60-day deadline.

"The 60 days is not statutory," he said.

If the deadline extension is denied by the board, the townships will have to decide what to do then, he said.

The trustees said they hope the extension issue is decided by the board Monday at its monthly meeting. The board meets at 7 p.m. in the administration building on the third Monday of each month.