Dubois Schools: Creative financing will fund major projects

Home equity loans have been popular with consumers for years because it gives them access to instant money.

That’s essentially what the Northeast Dubois School board is doing to find funding for long term major projects.

Last year, they refinanced their debt service to get over $800,000 to fix problems with facilities.  But, Superintendent Bill Hochgesang told the school board yesterday, those improvements and repairs were only the iceberg as far as needed facility repairs are concerned.

He presented a list of top 10 projects and a Phase 2 list that would not only take care of issues that need to be fixed but also would provide energy savings to the school corporation. Those items included:

• New heating and air conditioning at the middle and high school gymnasiums.
• Installing new DDC controls on HVAC units at the high school and Dubois Elementary facilities.
• New HVAC units at the middle school.
• Re-programming or adding controls to meet indoor air quality standards  in all buildings.
• Add a press box, restrooms, concessions, storage room and bleachers at the soccer field.
• Replacing one large HVAC unit in the 1999 addition at the high school with individual units.
• Replacing pool air handlers with energy recovery units.
• Replacing ventilators in shop areas with new heat and air conditioning units.
• Installing a new energy recovery unit for locker room ventilation.
• Installing new vertical classroom air handling units for classes in the 1958 area of the middle school below the gym.

Hochgesang stated those items will total about $2 million and that the money will come from adding to the debt service.

“We’ve decreased the debt by 7.44 cents, so I’m asking for 2.54 cents added back on, which will bring 2016’s tax rate to .3089, which is still below the 2014 level,” Hochgesang explained.

According to the superintendent the overall tax rate for the district is 81.27 cents this year. That’s down from the 2014 rate of 89.69 cents and down from the 2013 rate of 97.21 cents. A decrease of 15.94 cents.

The board passed three motions to start the process Tuesday night.

First was a declaration of official intent to reimburse expenditures. The second was a resolution to approve a form of third amendment to the lease. And the third was for permission to advertise for a public hearing at the next board meeting on April 21st to allow the public to speak on the action.

Bond counsel for the issuing of bonds has been retained by board attorney Art Nordhoff, and the building corporation members met after the meeting to approve the actions by the board.

Hochgesang said that there would be an eight year payback on the $2 million. And, he was adamant about the effect on tax rates, “The last thing we want to do is ask to raise taxes. We all want to keep them where they are or lower. We never want to raise them, so it will not raise our taxes,” he said.

The timeline on completing the projects is aggressive; Hochgesang wants them done by the time school begins in August of this year.

The school board also took the following actions.

On the topic of make-up days due to snow days, Hochgesang presented the calendar changes making school in session on April 3rd, and 6th, and May 26th, 27th and 28th.

The school corporation has applied for a virtual school make-up day for seniors only, so that they don’t have to come back to school after graduation ceremonies are over.

He also announced to the board that the school district has been awarded a Tech Grant from the state of Indiana on their application for an $86,000 request.  The exact amount of the grant was not specified yet but will be in April.  Northeast Dubois is one of only 19 school districts in the state to be awarded one of the grants.