Bats, mold, financial concerns rekindle fight over new high school in Woodford
Plans have been resurrected for a new Woodford County high school, despite the controversial 2018 election in which a majority of local voters opposed a facilities tax to pay for it.
While moving ahead on building a new high school on 61 acres that the district bought years ago adjacent to the Woodford County Middle School in Versailles, Woodford County school board members are currently at odds over how to pay for a new high school, how much to spend on it and how best to give the community a voice in the plans.
There is little disagreement that Woodford County needs a new high school, a facility that would provide updated science labs, more modern learning spaces, and an auditorium. The problem, in school board member Sherri Springate’s view, is that “the board has made no attempt to ...engage the community to get input and feedback before moving forward.”
“Truth be told, the board hasn’t even had open discussions about the pros and cons or developed a budget plan for funding this,” Springate said at the Jan. 21 school board meeting.
Springate thanked Woodford County Superintendent Scott Hawkins at the January 21 meeting “for his courage to speak up and share cautionary remarks about the fiscal impact to our district’s general fund if we choose to build a new high school this way.”
“This has come at a high cost to him professionally and personally,” Springate said.
Hawkins said Thursday that while he has expressed concerns, whatever “the board decides, I will carry out...it’s a board decision.”
School board member Dani Bradley said she was elected to the board after leading a 2018 grass roots effort for the facilities tax to pay for a new high school. Although that failed, she is still in favor of building a new high school.
“We have a 55-year-old high school that has bats,” Bradley said. “Just in the past month, our guidance counselors had to have their offices in the library with no privacy because they had mold in their offices. We’ve got inadequate bathroom facilities with one working sink.”
“It’s just unacceptable,” she said. “We have to do something.”
Moreover, Bradley said the existing high school is not compliant with the American Disabilities Act. The building does meet the ADA specifications that were in place during its last renovation in 1996, Hawkins said.
While Springate agrees that Woodford County needs a new high school, her concern is that the majority of school board members, including Bradley, voted to commit money from the district’s general fund to build the new high school despite the cautions expressed by Hawkins and the district finance officer.
The current plan of restricting general fund dollars takes much needed funds away from the classroom for the purpose of constructing a new high school, Springate told the Herald-Leader. “Unfortunately, this plan has created a financial hardship. Last year, the general fund lost nearly one million dollars and it is probable we will lose at least a million dollars again this year. In order to sustain this path, significant cuts will be necessary. In other words, we are trading programs, services, and people for a building.”
Hawkins said last year, the district’s expenses exceeded revenues by $986,000. This year, they are on pace for expenditures to exceed revenues by about $1.2 million, he said. To pay for the new school, the board has voted to restrict $950,000 of general fund money in the operating budget and $288,000 of capital outlay dollars to improve and increase the district’s bonding capacity.
The board hired a new architect in March 2019 and established a steering committee in April to work on the design. In June 2019, the board approved a $36.2 million project application for a classroom building and an auxiliary gym on a 3-2 vote. Springate said teachers and community members have expressed concerns about such a phased construction project and spoken out against using general fund dollars in that manner.
In December 2019, the school board voted to approve a schematic design for a more complete high school, a $50 million dollar project that would include a classroom building, competition gym and auditorium, which Woodford County High School currently does not have.
But at a Jan. 27 school board meeting, in order to give citizens more time to react, members voted to table whether to increase a project application from $36.2 million to $50 million.
At that most recent meeting, citizens and former school board members encouraged the current board to set aside differences and involve the community before making decisions regarding the funding of the high school.
“It is not fiscally sound to use general fund dollars to build a high school and risk the financial security of our school district,” a Facebook post on Tuesday from an education advocacy group called Concerned Citizens of Woodford County said.
“At this point, I am not sure what the plan is moving forward,” Springate told the Herald-Leader Wednesday. “My preference is to return the restricted funds back to the general fund to support our students and staff.”
Bradley, who voted to table the increase in spending for now but has approved the other measures for a new building, said “I absolutely have no desire to harm Woodford County Schools’ long-term financial health.”
She said that as far as the financial issues that Hawkins and the finance officer has brought to the school board’s attention, “we have to address that.”
“I’m concerned about all of it and figuring out the best way forward,” Bradley said. “I’m concerned that we have built a budget that is absolutely 100 percent predicated on taking the maximum tax rate every single year and its still not enough. I think its going to be something that schools face more and more.”
“We’ve got to work together to find a solution,” Bradley said. “Kicking the can down the road on this high school can’t be the answer. The cost of building goes up every year. What sets Woodford County apart is the quality of education that we give...we have a long-term problem that we have to figure out together.”