Effingham continues to plan future of Unit 40 facilities

Mar. 26—The community-led group 40Forward met recently as residents continue to assist Effingham Unit 40 in plotting the future of its facilities.

The most recent meeting, which was held Thursday night at the Effingham Event Center, focused on four different scenarios for the future of the district's facilities, the cost of each scenario and ways in which the district could cover those costs. The district's current plan for funding these multi-million dollar facility projects is by implementing a 1% sales tax.

The Unit 40 Board voted Monday to have the sales tax question placed on ballots in Effingham County for the general election on Nov. 5. If approved, any revenue county districts received from the tax could only be spent on district facilities, mental health professionals, and school resource officers.

Cary Harper, one of the co-chairs of the 40Forward facilitation team, kicked off the second community engagement session and told attendees that the ultimate goal of the 40Forward program is to develop a "long-range facility improvement plan." Harper is a graduate of Effingham High School, and he said two of his children are currently students in Unit 40 schools.

According to the Harper, the facilitation team is composed of district teachers, parents and community members.

"Tonight, we are visioning for the future, discussing where we want to go and dipping our toes in the water for some possible solutions," Harper said.

Harper said that once developed, a "facility master plan" will be presented to the Unit 40 Board.

"Our school board needs to hear from all of you to identify facility priorities and evaluate funding opportunities and ultimately create a facility improvement plan that supports our students, our staff and our community," Harper said.

While putting together scenarios for the district's facilities, Damien Schlitt of BLDD Architects said those involved in drafting them considered just how spread out the district's schools are and the inconveniences this creates. He said one of the key goals of the scenarios is to "ease grade transitions."

"We're currently maintaining six buildings, plus a day care facility. We have a lot of redundancies across the district," he said. "For those who aren't aware, moving every single year to a new building is really hard on the student and also very hard on the educators that are managing the building that the students are moving in and out of."

Scenario 1

Improvements are focused on PK-2nd with a new building. Students that were once in four facilities (East Side, ELC, Southside, and a few 2nd graders in Central) are now all combined into one building for efficiency, sharing of services, and cross curricular collaboration. Central grade school gains some space with the removal of two sections of second grade. The cafeteria / kitchen are remodeled for general improvements. Classrooms are heavily remodeled so they can be right sized, and include one-on-one, small group, and office spaces. Central includes the replacement/repair of the existing wood floor in the gym.

This scenario would cost the district an estimated $64.7 million.

"This building would allow us to retire three facilities. The ELC, East Side and Little Hearts would go offline. West Side would remain the alternative ed," said Damien Schlitt of BLDD Architects.

Scenario 2

All grade levels from PK — 5th grade get a new building. Two new elementaries are built, pulling all students out of East Side, ELC, South Side, and Central. Some schools are "retired." Others could possibly be used for other programs — like day care at South Side or moving the county's alternate ed program to Central.

"Instead of West Side remaining online for alt ed, that program actually gets moved out to the Central Elementary which actually allows for an expansion of some of the services that program could provide," Schlitt said.

The Early Learning Center, East Side Preschool, the Little Hearts Early Childhood Center and West Side School would all be retired in this scenario.

Scenario 2 would cost the district an estimated $91.5 million.

Scenario 3

The Junior High receives a classroom addition and gym addition to add 5th grade to this building. The building would be designed in two groups: 5th and 6th grade group and a 7th and 8th grade group. A new building would be built for PK-1st grade. And Central Elementary would hold 2nd — 4th grades.

In this scenario, the day care would be moved to South Side Grade School, and the Early Learning Center, Little Hearts Early Childhood Center and East Side Preschool would be retired.

"In this instance, Central actually becomes a second through fourth grade building, and this is made possible by actually adding fifth grade to the junior high," Schlitt said.

This scenario would cost the district an estimated $71.7 million.

In Scenario 4

The Junior High is a new building for 6th — 8th grades. What was once the junior high now holds 3rd — 5th grades. And it would most likely have enough space to hold other programs like the day care, unless the adjacent high school needs to use those spaces. Central Elementary receives various heavy remodels so it can hold PK — 2nd grade (PreK and Kindergarten need individual toilet rooms in each room = heavy remodels.)

"You will notice this is one of the larger first costs just because the amount of new square footage on this campus for the 6-8 with that solution," Schlitt said.

The fourth scenario would cost an estimated $79.1 million.

Financing

If the district were to decide against any of the four proposed scenarios, it is estimated that the district would end up paying about $18.8 million in necessary facility improvements.

Schlitt said that according to a cost-benefit ratio analysis of each scenario, the Scenario 1 would likely give the district the most "bang for its buck."

Attendees also heard from Anne Noble from Stifel Public Finance who broke down some of the options for how the district could fund facility projects.

Noble said that 57 counties in the state have already approved and implemented the same sales tax Unit 40 is looking to impose, and she noted that if the sales tax is approved, there would be some "carve-outs of what is taxed." Items that would not be subject to the new sales tax include unprepared food, such as groceries, and medicine or prescriptions.

"Most things related to farming are not taxed, and services are not taxed," Noble said.

The sales tax question will only be placed on the ballot if school districts representing more than 50% of the county's total enrollment vote to include it.

"Effingham is not quite 50% of the enrollment in the county, but they're darn close," Noble said.

A majority of votes would have to be cast in favor of the sales tax for it to pass, and if implemented, the sales tax would bring in approximately $8.3 million annually for county schools, according to Noble.

The sales tax revenue would be distributed between the different county school districts based on their enrollment, with Unit 40 receiving an estimated $4 million annually.

"They can fund between $50 million and $70 million worth of building projects using that money depending on how much of the money we apply toward the bond payments," she said.

Noble said that the district could also obtain the funds for facility projects by selling property tax backed bonds rather than bonds backed by sales tax.

"If we wanted to fund the same thing using the property tax, it would cause about a 50 cent increase on your tax bills," she said.

If the district chose to make no changes to sales or property tax, it would be left with about $20 million for projects.

After the presentation, community members discussed and ranked each scenario. Participants will go over the input during the next community engagement meeting, which is scheduled for April 18 from 6:30-8:30 p.m. at the Effingham Event Center.

One of the groups at the meeting ranked Scenario 1 as their top scenario, and members of the group suggested combining the district's day care and preschool at South Side Grade School. They also said they'd like to see some improvements made to the gymnasium at Central Grade School.

"Traffic flow is a concern," Jami Davis, who has children that attend Unit 40 schools, said while acting as the spokesperson for her group. "We also have some opinions on where the new building is located for safety and shared resource reasons."

Another group chose Scenario 1 as its top choice and Scenario 2 as its second choice. Members listed location and traffic as top concerns with the construction of any new buildings.

"If the buildings were close to the high school, possibly, high school students in the child care programs could maybe go over and get some real work experience with the day care, pre-K and K," Effingham City Planner Greg Koester said while acting as a spokesman for his group.

More information about the first community engagement meeting can be found on the district's website at www.unit40.org/board_office/40_forward.

Nick Taylor can be reached at nick.taylor@effinghamdailynews.com or by phone at 618-510-9226 or 217-347-7151 ext. 300132.