Tuesday, January 14th, 2025
Study to look at Tri Star as separate entity
By William Kincaid
CELINA - A feasibility study will determine if Tri Star can be changed from a career compact to a collaborative compact, a move that could relieve Celina schools of financial administration of Tri Star.
School board members at Monday night's regular meeting approved a motion to hire former district treasurer Tom Sommer for $50 an hour "to assist Tri Star Career Compact in becoming a Cooperative Compact," according to the meeting agenda.
Board member Julie Sommer, who is married to Tom Sommer, abstained from the vote.
Superintendent Brooke Gessler said Tom Sommer's expenses would be covered by Tri Star funds. He will help Tri Star Director Tim Buschur carry out the study.
"What we are looking into is for Tri Star to be able to become its own entity," Gessler said. "Right now it is fiscally - and as far as union and some other organizational ways - it's tied to Celina City (Schools)."
Buschur is exploring "what does it look like to become its (Tri Star's) own entity."
"He's enlisted the help … of Tom to help determine what are the fiscal implications for that in terms of personnel and other costs that are associated with potential separation for it to become its own entity," she said. "It's not at this point. This is exploration to be able to fact find to make that determination at a future date."
Celina, Coldwater and St. Marys school districts formed Tri Star on March 31, 1983. Eventually Fort Recovery, Marion Local, Minster, New Bremen, New Knoxville and St. Henry also joined to make up the nine school districts in Tri Star today.
Area voters at a special election in August 2016 approved a 15-year, 0.95-mill bond levy to construct a new $25 million, 101,170-square-foot, two-story Tri Star complex on State Route 703. The facility opened its doors to students in August 2019.
The state agreed to cover $8.31 million of the $25 million project with the levy funding the remaining $17 million.
In February 2022, Buschur told Celina school board members that area school superintendents wanted a governing structure that would ensure equal representation of all compact members and decision making at Tri Star.
Some school officials felt in certain instances they didn't have input because the Celina school board, the fiscal agent, has final say on most decisions, Buschur had said.
The minutes from a December 2022 Tri Star Meeting appeared to bolster that assessment.
"Based on the auditors' findings, the current Tri Star agreement needs to be adjusted because of bonding concern and one school imposing their will on the other eight schools," the minutes read. "Superintendents have hired legal counsel, an expert bonding agent lawyer, to help with the drafting of a new agreement."
