By Gary Ogle
gogle@wbcowqel.com

The Colonel Crawford school board is returning to the ballot box on May 6 in the primary election. It will be the second time the district has asked residents for a 0.5-mill permanent improvement levy to qualify for state funds for a new high school wing on the pre-K through 8 building.

“This time it’s just the 0.5-mill to continue the building out 23 years,” Superintendent Todd Martin said. “They (state education officials) don’t want to build you something you can’t maintain and will close down the road.”

The levy would generate $57,000 annually that will be used for maintenance and permanent improvement. Passage of the levy would cost the owner of a $100,000 home approximately $17.50 year.

If voters do approve the levy in May, the Colonel Crawford district will qualify for $6.4 million in state funding. That is enough to build the 15,817-square-foot addition to the William and Hannah Crawford Building that students moved into in 2006. That puts all but the district’s vo-ag and industrial arts classes under one roof and cuts into utility costs significantly. It will also take care of demolishing the district’s old and unused buildings.

Broken down, $3.7 million would build the high school wing and $2.8 million would be spent on asbestos removal and demolition of buildings at North Robinson, Sulphur Springs and Whetstone, plus a good portion of the current high school. The only thing that will remain from the current high school that was built in the early 1960s will be a couple of classrooms that will be converted into district offices, the gymnasium, swimming pool, locker rooms, cafeteria, and vo-ag and industrial arts areas.

The administration sees the levy as a small investment on a much bigger return that will allow the district to take advantage of the opportunity to apply a solution where there is an obvious need.

“This is the last piece to the project that the community started years ago. You come to the high school, 9 through 12, we’re putting band aids on a roof that leaks. Every time it freezes and thaws the roof cracks open another spot,” Martin said. “To get the K through 12 where it needs to be we have to get this piece done. To tear down old buildings we’ll never be able to afford to do ourselves we need this to happen now.”

Martin says voters were confused when both the improvement levy and a bond issue for a new high school gymnasium were voted on last year. Only the permanent improvement levy will be on in May.

“I think we threw too much at them at once, the bond issue and the 0.5-mill levy,” Martin said. “There were a lot of people that felt the language was confusing so they voted ‘no’ on both of them.”

Plans are to break ground this year and Martin said the district has proceeded with the project without passage of the levy due to a temporary, unique situation.

“The state allowed us to move inside millage so it wouldn’t affect anyone’s taxes and the project would proceed,” Martin said. “But we can’t maintain that out 23 years and we can’t show that we can.”

A community meeting regarding he levy and building project has been scheduled for 6 p.m., April 28 in the William and Hannah cafetorium.