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Celina City Schools Board of Education members are in the midst of a $135 million building project but still have some tough decisions to make, including whether to keep or raze the football stadium built in 1941 and the historic fieldhouse that dates back to 1939.
CELINA - School board members plan to host a special meeting in September to solicit public opinions on how to best spend a limited amount of local dollars on the new grades 7-12 building campus.
Board members at Tuesday night's regular meeting gave an overview on the status of the ongoing $135 million building project in an attempt to lay out facts and dispel rumors. They also indicated they will host a special meeting to engage the community but did not set a date.
"Celina Elementary is on budget and on time. That's the big deal," board member Julie Sommer said. "We will have our students learning in the new building in just a few weeks. The existing intermediate building is still being retrofitted and should have fourth- through six graders in the classrooms around the first of the year."
The new middle school/high school project is in the final design phase, with construction documents to be completed soon and then sent out for bids.
"We actually get a fixed not-to-exceed bid from all the contractors and at that point in time we will have a very good understanding of how much money we've got left or how much money we have to come up with," board member Mark Huelsman said in July.
Any expenses exceeding the project budget will have to be covered by the district. Board members said they've done everything they can to get the most value for the money that has been entrusted to them.
"As I'm sure you can imagine, inflation has had a huge impact on the building cost," Sommer said.
The new middle school/high school building will feature a competitive high school gymnasium for basketball and volleyball, capable of seating 2,000 people, and a middle school gymnasium, according to board president Carl Huber.
School officials have the option to position soccer fields, a track/football stadium and tennis courts all on the middle school/high school campus.
They must determine whether to keep or raze the historic fieldhouse built in 1939 and the football stadium that went up in 1941, both rich in nostalgic value.
The iconic Celina High School Fieldhouse underwent a nearly $100,000 facelift in the summer 2021.
They could demolish the fieldhouse and schedule high school basketball games in the new high school gymnasium and build a new track/football stadium on the grades 7-12 campus.
But no decisions on a master athletic facilities plan have been made, Huelsman stressed again on Tuesday night.
"The decision on what we do with the rest of the campus is really up in the air," he said. "We don't know. We don't know what we're going to do to the fieldhouse. We don't know what we're going to do to the football field. We don't know what we're going to do with the track. We're being forced by the state, by the budget, by inflation to use LFI (locally funded initiatives) funds so that we're not asking for more tax dollars."
LFI initiatives are not co-funded by the state and exclusively the responsibility of the district. In 2019, a community group voted to prioritize the community wants and needs in a priority list.
The campus may have to be developed over the course of five years, he said.
"We'll have to make decisions as a community and as the board as to what do we do next and what do we do then and where do we spend our money, because, again, our funds are limited," Huelsman said.
District voters in May 2021 narrowly approved a roughly $75.9 million bond issue and a 0.5-mill levy to build a middle/high school and renovate the intermediate school and build an addition to house preschool-sixth grades. The total project was initially estimated at $126.8 million.
Bonds issued to raise the district's share of the project were issued with net interest just under 2.8% and will be paid back over 37 years.
The Ohio Facilities Construction Commission signed off on the release of $51 million in state funds for the project but later agreed to pitch in an additional $7.87 million to help with rising construction costs. As part of the agreement with OFCC, the local share of the project rose by a little over $7 million, according to information presented on Tuesday night.
"The match came from existing LFI dollars," Sommer said. "This kept the board from having to go back to the taxpayers, but it caused a reduction in what could be done with those LFI funds."
The move reduced the district's LFI dollars from $21.59 million to $14.36 million.
So far, the district has spent about $7.5 million of its LFI pot on the new elementary school and remodeled intermediate school, Huelsman pointed out.
"As you will all agree, we have a limited amount of dollars to complete the building project but will finish on budget," Sommer said.
Some of the LFIs the school board agreed to include the repurposing the intermediate school office space to cafeteria space and a metal roof at the intermediate school addition, Sommer said.
However, officials are not proceeding with a fixed seat auditorium in the 7-12 building. Rather, they're pursuing an auditeria/cafetorium with custom chairs containing backs and arms that retract like bleachers.
The state will now co-fund the square-footage of the auditeria/cafetorium, saving the district millions of dollars, Huelsman said.
"At this stage of the game we had to do everything we could to save money," he said.
