Cleveland Heights - University Heights Board of Education meeting highlights 5-24-12

MAY 24, 2012

• New facilities plans
• Funding
• Resolution deadlines

All board members were present.

New facilities plans

Stephen Shergalis, director of business services, presented three new plans for the facilities project:

• Plan C-1: Renovate and redesign only the high school at a cost of $92 million. This could be covered by a bond issue and the other schools’ renovations funded by other means.

Plan C-2 and 3 would maintain an elementary school in University Heights with the rest of plan C left in place:

• Plan C-2: Renovate and redesign the high school and also Gearity as a pre-kindergarten through grade five building.
• Plan C-3: Renovate and redesign the high school, create a pre-kindergarten through grade three building at the Wiley site and create a grade four through eight building at the Canterbury site.

Funding

In order to borrow at current appraisal values, the board would have to borrow this year or next. State funding under the Ohio School Facility Commission would be limited to 14 percent of the cost for the square footage that the state approves. Discussion included doing only the high school and two levies. The amount of the levy was predicted to be 6.83 mills and the schools could borrow at 4 to 4.25 percent.

Resolution deadlines

Two resolutions must be passed by July 9, 2012 and both can be passed at the same meeting.

LWV observer: Adele Cohn.

These meeting summaries are abstracted from LWV observers’ written reports. The summaries have been edited and prepared by Anne McFarland, Charlene Morse, and Maryann Barnes. To receive e-mail postings of full reports, send an e-mail to mbarnes9515@gmail.com or join through Google groups using “lwv-chuh observer reports” as a search phrase.

These reports contain member observation and selected highlights of public meetings and are not official statements of the Heights Chapter of the League of Women Voters Cuyahoga Area. This disclaimer must accompany any redistribution of these reports.