Federal Hocking Local School District has a $5 million multi-part bond issue on Tuesday's ballot and now is fighting opposition groups to get it passed.
Can we get by without it? Sure we can -but if we don't pass this levy
it will later cost the school district more to pay for it all Superintendent James Patsey said. We don't know. A deal that could come later would come with rising costs.
If the issue passes, the Ohio School Facilities Commission will provide the district $8.5 million of funding, despite its not meeting attendance requirements at its two elementary schools, Patsey said.
The issue is composed of two bond issues and a levy. The first part, a bond issue, will be valued 2.26 mills, with which the district hopes would raise about $3.5 million to fund school construction projects. The second part, a tax levy, will pay for the cost of maintaining classroom facilities and is valued at 0.5 mills.
The final part, another bond issue, is for 0.99 mills and would raise about $1.4 million for local initiatives. The district will use the money for paying the cost of acquiring and constructing a weight room locker rooms
bleachers
a concession stand and other school facilities improvements and acquiring buses which will not be funded by the facilities commission.
Other necessities include paving building parking lots and installing new fire alarms, sprinkler systems and double-paned windows to cut heating and cooling costs, Patsey said.
Former district board member Jeff Koehler is part of the issue's opposition group. He said he thinks that the district should have waited a while longer to put the issue on the ballot and to ask for money from the commission, in hopes that the commission would offer a greater amount of funding in the future.
Years later
we could be able to get more from the state
Koehler said. Some of the buildings are only 7 years old. I don't see how all the parts they say need to be replaced are needing to be replaced.
Opposition to bond issues and levies in the district is nothing new. According to documents from the Athens County Board of Elections, Federal Hocking was able to pass improvement and construction bond issues in 1986 and 1994, but it did not pass any of the eight consecutive levies on the ballot between 1980 and 1996.
17
Archives
Katy Ganz
