City of Akron willing to give APS leftover bond money to help build new Kenmore school
The plan to replace two aging school buildings with a brand new one in the Kenmore neighborhood just got a significant boost toward viability.
City of Akron leaders told Akron Public Schools administrators in an afternoon public meeting on June 6 that the city was willing to let the district use leftover bond money from the previous community learning center projects to build the new school in Kenmore.
The funding had been in flux, although APS was depending on it to close a gap in the project budget . Without that money, the district administration was proposing ways to shrink the project significantly.
Mayor Shammas Malik said the city was in favor of relinquishing the money in the fund, which sits at about $18 million, to replace Pfeiffer Elementary and the Miller South School for the Visual and Performing Arts with a new combination school on the site of the former Kenmore High School.
The city will not be able to hand over all $18 million, however. The fund, which is leftover bond money from the last bond issuance in 2016, has been sitting long enough to gain interest but also to incur penalties known as arbitrage. The penalty will have to come out of that fund and be paid to the federal government.
City Finance Director Steve Frisker said after the meeting he did not want to take a guess on how large that penalty would be, and thus, how much money the city could actually promise toward the Kenmore project.
But if the number is at least a majority in that fund, APS officials said they expect that to be enough to close the gap in their $76 million project.
The board voted two years ago to approve the project, but two years later, with little progress made, construction costs climbed, and the project total grew by $13 million , leaving board members and administrators stressed about the commitment. About half of the leftover bond funds were already baked into the project, but the possibility of using all of it presented a way to cover the difference.
APS administrators had recently presented to the board options for trimming the project more significantly. Two of the three options included closing Pfeiffer but not rebuilding it. That would mean redistricting Pfeiffer's roughly 200 students to other schools, and the Kenmore neighborhood losing another school. The neighborhood used to have 10 schools, but if Pfeiffer closed, it would be down to three. One option included moving the entire project out of Kenmore, to the property of Litchfield CLC, a middle school in the Firestone cluster.
Malik said the city is committed to the project, if it stays in Kenmore and if it stays as originally planned, with both Miller South and Pfeiffer being included.
"That is the understanding that the community has had and I think there's an important thing in keeping promises that are made," he said after the meeting. "And having a neighborhood school is very valuable."
Keeping it in Kenmore, he told the joint board, "is a priority, for this neighborhood that has seen school closures and just general concerns about investment."
Using money from the community learning center fund, Malik said, the intention is to make the new Kenmore building a CLC. He said he hoped that would also be the case for the new building for North High School, even though it is being paid for with a levy voters approved in November.
APS Board President Carla Jackson said she was "very excited" to hear about the city's pledge.
"I really want this to happen expeditiously," she said.
Once the city determines how much money the arbitrage will cost, leaders will know how much can be pledged to the APS project. Then the APS board will have to make the decision if that's enough money to move forward with the original plan, or if the plan needs to be adjusted. Even with the full $18 million, they could still be about $1 million - $2 million short. That much savings could possibly be achieved in tweaking the design, Treasurer and CFO Steve Thompson said.
Superintendent Mary Outley said she had heard the pleading from the Pfeiffer community and the Kenmore neighborhood to keep the school open. Students, staff and parents held a rally after school on June 3.
"I wouldn't expect them to do anything other than that," Outley said. "That's what you do, is fight for your school."
When the school district finds out how much money the city can afford, APS can make a decision on how to move forward, she said.
"I just look forward to us coming together and making a final decision, that we know how much we can put toward the project," Outley said.
Contact education reporter Jennifer Pignolet at jpignolet@thebeaconjournal.com, at 330-996-3216 or on Twitter @JenPignolet.
This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: City of Akron willing to give APS leftover bond money to help build new Kenmore school
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