A budget gap that threatened plans to build a combined Miller South School for the Visual and Performing Arts and Pfeiffer Elementary in Akron’s Kenmore neighborhood could be largely filled with the help of money that was originally earmarked for community learning centers in the city.
Mayor Shammas Malik said Friday that the city is “willing to explore” giving the “entirety” of a roughly $18 million pot of leftover bond money to the school district to ensure the combined school is built in Kenmore as originally planned — minus a portion that would be due to the federal government because of the amount of interest earned on the funds.
“We are open to that as an initial point of discussion,” Malik said at a meeting of the Joint Board of Review, made up of members from the city and Akron Public Schools.
Even with the money from the fund, known as the local finance initiative, available for the project, the combined school is likely to have a $1 to $2 million gap, said Steve Thompson, the APS treasurer and CFO. Akron Superintendent Mary Outley said staffers at the two schools to be rebuilt were “forthcoming” with ideas about where cuts might be made to keep the project but bring down costs — like eliminating a planned black box theater at Miller South or a sensory room at Pfeiffer.
Thompson also said reducing the amount of hallway space, shrinking Miller South’s auditorium or building a smaller cafeteria and having more periods for lunch were among the options being discussed.
Both school and city officials said building the school in Kenmore, where the high school is in the process of being demolished to make room for the proposed building and whose students were distributed elsewhere, was a priority. Other options to deal with the gap have been proposed as well, including closing Pfeiffer Elementary and redistricting its students and sending Miller South students to Litchfield CLC in Northwest Akron.
Malik said he had concerns about the Litchfield option and would not want to see local finance initiative money help pay for an addition at Litchfield to accommodate Miller South.
“Our position is having a project in Kenmore is a priority,” he said. “Really, there’s a lot of excitement around the promise of this, the potential of this.”
Promise of school in Kenmore important to community
Some members of the Kenmore community spoke through tears about the importance of having a school in their community. Tina Boyes, the City Council member who represents the area, told board members that residents there voted for the tax increase that helped build community learning centers around the city but benefited the least.
“This community did not receive its fair share,” she said. “This is bigger than just education. This could be a catalyzer for the community.”
Both Boyes and Malik said it was important to keep the promise made to residents to build the school in their neighborhood.
Still, there are some concerns about making the money available. City Council President Margo Sommerville said she wanted community members to have more access to the CLCs — a promise attached to the construction of the buildings when the voters approved a 2003 plan to increase city income tax by .25% in exchange for community access to the buildings.
The ease of using the CLCs has been a long-time complaint of residents, who are often required to have insurance that precludes their access. Sommerville said she’d like to address that issue before coming to an agreement about the money.
And the school district has to ensure that they can make enough cuts to the project so that it can be built, if the local finance initiative money is made available. Thompson said three years ago, the construction project was quoted at $63 million. Now, the estimated cost is $76 million, a figure that includes the costs of school demolition.
The joint board is expected to meet again in a month, once the architect, Prime AE, has looked at what cost reductions might be available and the city has determined what interest overage on the bonds, called arbitrage, might be owed. Officials said they had no guesses on how much of the $18 million pot might be available.
North High School could also face cost overruns
In the meantime, Thompson said it’s possible that the new North High School — approved by voters in November — could also face cost overruns. The $85 million in bonds voters agreed to fund might not be enough to construct that school, he said. The parties will have to decide if some of the local finance initiative funds could and should be saved for potential cost overruns there.
“The longer you wait, with inflationary rates, it adds to the bill,” Thompson said. “It would be irresponsible of us not to start building some contingency plans.”
Carla Jackson, the school board president, said Thompson “has a job before him” in figuring out how to make the numbers work for the school construction projects. Still, she said, she hopes that a good solution can be found.
“Ground needs to break,” she said. “Concrete needs to be poured.”
