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Superintendent Andy Culp and Treasurer/CFO Beth Collier answer residents' questions about Issue 6 live on YouTube October 22, 2018.

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hello everyone my name is Danny, but I'm superintendent we apologize for the technical difficulty we have learned that the sound was not working as we had planned so we thank you for your patience on this is our first time using this then you and this this technology to engage our community so can we apologize for your inconvenience and we thank you for your patience about how this is G hdsd.org view of Issue 6 is Issue 6 is a combined issue of a 1 mil operating Levy with an additional 5.84 mil bond issue cost residents $239 per hundred thousand a property valuation listed on the Franklin County Auditor's website IT addresses critical repairs and improvements to all schools in the district as well as maintaining the current level of academic programs and Staffing let's look at each segment of the issue individually operating dollars are what are used to cover the day-to-day expenses of the school district these phone pay for costs such as teachers and staff utilities and supplies it has been 4 years since the district last asked residents traditional operating funds in addition this is the lowest request for operating dollars the district has made in more than 70 years the bond issue includes 55.25 $5000000 to fun Safety and Security upgrades to all school buildings build a new 4th through 8th grade school and comprehensively renovate Grandview Heights High School specifically the bond issue will allow the district to do the following first meet the 2018 Ada standards to make all the buildings fully accessible to students staff and visitors with disa Woody's secondly it will allow us to improve safety at each School building including are locked entrances security glass and new alarm systems and find play it will allow us to better meet the needs today's students in areas such as science classroom space it's also important to understand the ballot language related to Issue 6 the ballot language on November 6th will be 47.5 Mills of bond money however 1.66 Mills of existing bond money will be paid in full in 2009 so only 5.84 Mills of the bond request is for new funding now we are going to begin addressing some question remember if you have a question you'd like to submit please do so by telling us at Superintendent at GH csd.org again that's Superintendent at GHC sd.org our first question is why is the bond issue needed so the bond issue is needed for several important reasons the first reason is because we have over 44 and a half dollars of deferred maintenance and the current reality of our aging facilities or facilities that are over on average 90 years old are buildings were built in 1911 just be on there what's the cost of real and the time is now sore next question is can the Grandview yard for this project so this is a cup question that Beth and I in our community and it is a question of all of the mini coffees that we've had that we get asked about it about and everyone and as you know we've been on the facility planning Journey now for over three years and the one of the final phases of our comprehensive Community Driven facility planning process is a financial advisory committee and that committee asked us to engage our city council our Board of Education and Nationwide Realty to evaluate whether might be able to renegotiate the school compensation agreement so that we're able to offset the cost to our residence and that is something that our board has been doing since February 28th and those are Goshi Asians are still ongoing and while I'm optimistic at this point the cost to our residence is to comprehensively renovate Grandview Heights High School build a new 4 8 build as well as address Ada standards commensurate with 2018 k12 and again Safety and Security for all of our building and we feel the need is real in the time now and that the cost of $239 400,000 allows us to pay it forward for generations to come as Andy mentioned we are very optimistic about a possible partnership with Grandview yard with a city of Grandview Heights with Nationwide Realty and again while while No Deal has been finalized at this point we're very optimistic about this opportunity and we're continuing to work. legitly on this preliminary numbers look like if the the deal is finalized based on on the the estimates that were evaluating at this time the bond millage would be reduced map to 4250 % so that the millage that residents would actually pay beginning next year would be reduced by up to 40 to 50% if that deal gets done I think in poor he also related to the Grandview yard you know I talk a lot or also asked why not wait why is it that the reality is that here regardless of weather of school compensation agreement with Nationwide in the city council in the Board of Education was done today or whether it's done in 6 weeks the way the best most cost-effective way to pay for a comprehensive facility project interest rates it has to do with the fact that in order to fund a capital Improvement the cost to our residence the cost would only go up the cost of this project will never be cheaper than it is today interest rate environment for some time and interest rates are starting to creep back up secondly each year that we delay this project due to inflation alone the cost increases by about two and a half million dollars a year so again that the price for this project will only go up if we wait and as Andy also mentioned with a bond issue Bond issues are the cheapest most cost-effective means of financing a facility project for a school district in Ohio long does not allow us to modify or reduce ballot millage on a bond issue so for example if the Grandview yard deal it if that deal was done already the bond College on the ballot would still be the 7.5 meals so we got a question why do we still need to vote on a bond issue now and we kind of answered that already the next question is couldn't we ask for Less millage day if there's a possibility of the Grandview yard providing more Revenue to the district and the answer to that is no as I mentioned Bond issues are the most cost-effective means of financing a facility project and state law does not allow us to reduce that millage because we have an outside source of Revenue that will help pay those bonds it's important to under Dan even if Grandview yard does provide additional funding it will not be a windfall all at once it would be additional Revenue over the next approximately 20 years and that Revenue would be pledge to help pay the the bonds each year over the life of that. Need the full millage on the ballot so the next question is what about the functionality of the buildings and the Ada issues so currently in our K-12 facilities if you are in a wheelchair whether you are a student Dora parent or a guest you are unable to access the main School doors or the side doors one of the things that if we're successful November 6th we would have dresses is we would allow for us to gain access through all the main entrances of all three buildings so that is something that we're hopeful for provided were successful November 6th so our next question is what about the community process so about 3 years ago we began a journey of engaging our community in a facility planning process and that process with a Continuum of 8 bearing facility options one of the options was a more modest investment of in the neighborhood of $5000000 K12 all the way to do a comprehensive state-of-the-art all-new K-12 campus on the footprint where Edison Larson Middle School in the high school are all new and I I think it was in the approximately 70 to 75 million dollars community-wide meeting where we shared all eight of those plans along with some pros and cons of each we gathered feedback from those in attendance at the community meeting through exit tickets and then we also serve a dark and we narrowed those eight options based on the community feedback to 3 and then we had another community meeting where we shared those three remaining options that were clearly the communities preferences and we again the pros and cons in more detail we gathered feedback from those community members in attendance through exit tickets and then we also conducted another online survey as well as focus groups as well as qualitative feedback in a lot of community coffees based on all of those varying touchpoints we had over 300 3600 Community touchpoints we selected in recommended master plan which is renovate Stevenson Elementary building decided on the master facility play and we engaged a group of 10 to 12 business proven Business Leaders in our community to comprehensively analyze and make the best business and financial decision for our community and so their recommendation was to narrow the K-12 recommendation to 412 and why we are going to address ADA Compliant to Safety and Security at Stevenson we are dressing building a new for a building and comprehensively renovating the high school and that came at a cost of 55.25 million dollars and is Cost question is can't we just fix the old systems why do we need to renovate or build new so that the most cost-effective Plan B to do it all at once and the most cost-effective plan is to ask for the bond millage that we are because interest rates or the lowest historical low furthermore there are serious benefits to doing it all at once versus piecemealing it and do it doing it increment time the industry standard or accepted conservative standard and weeks and months of studying this by our financial advisory committee many of which were Builders and business they felt like it was the most cost-effective plan to do it comprehensively and all at once in the degree to which we wait the more costly it becomes to our residents sore next question how old is Shu 6 improve safety in our schools Issue 6 does it was really important to our financial advisor committee as well as her Board of Education and Leadership team to ensure Safety and Security date of the day is your superintendent job one is to ensure that every single student that walk to the doors every day is safe and secure and this plan provided were successful in November 6th would allow us to comprehensive address not only Safety and Security in terms of secure vestibules but also security systems cameras fire suppression at as well as 88 compliant next question is why are these two issues come by bind on the map will get one vote to either vote the combination of votive to Levy's together they will not be individual vote and that is for a couple first of all tissues the operating Levy and the bond Levy are needed if the bonds Levy passed but the operating Levy failed had we separated them then it's B likely that we would have to return to voters for additional operating funds before we've even finished the facility project and one thing that was important to our financial advisory committee was to make sure that we were on solid Financial footing operating wise through the duration of the project we didn't think that it was fiscally responsible to return to voters in the middle of a major facility project and then on the flip side if the operating Levy has passed but the bond Levy failed we would have to begin diverting operating funds to address some of the critical facility needs and if that was the case one of operating money would not be enough so that's why that the two issues are combined into one and I also related to have to evaluate our operating dollars in how we're going to address our current facilities because the need is real and it doesn't go away our next question is what happens if owners do now approve Issue 6 well I am not psychic but I kind of already answered that in the event that we are not successful November 6th we're going to have to take a really close look at our operating dollars and how we going to begin to incrementally try and convert some of our operating dollars to address our are real need with respect to facilities okay our next question is why does the Franklin County auditors online calculator showing different number than what the school district is telling us so many of you may have gone on to the Franklin County Auditor's website to see what levy issue 6 would cost a couple things to keep in that Levy calculator shows the full that expires next year so that. Levy calculator only shows the cost of the new Levy and it does not show the offsetting reduction from the lady that expires and then the other important consideration when using let calculator is the levy calculator shows taxable value not the full appraised value of your property so it's important to note that the cost of Issue 6 would be too huh $39 per hundred thousand of property valuation Clarence Mingo are Franklin auditor did a really great video summarizing much of what Beth also just outline and can be readily accessed on our web page as well as through bearing social media media mechanisms okay moving along to the next question tell us more about the critical for our buildings as mention we're building 1811 1922 and 1926 and they are just beyond their useful life and our systems are just wearing out and then includes HVAC that includes Roofing electric plumbing water heaters elevators and in as much as I like to plan my work and work our plan when it comes to our facilities we are constantly in reaction mode in you know one of the things that is clear is even recently as recently as a month ago when we had a torrential downpours over a long weekend on that Monday I have receive calls from every single principle in a multitude of tea from all three buildings about significant water damage and water leaks in all room and even several classroom student learning was disruptive disrupted as a result of water leaks in classrooms it is those kinds of challenges that we're trying to address holistically and in a cost-effective way so each year we have about $550,000 generated from a permanent prevent Levy that is our budget to address facility needs that money is also used for technology equipment so each year we prioritize and we plan to to address the most critical needs in our facilities Andy alluded to oftentimes emergencies arise that that Force us to push back all the plans that we had in end of her those items until a later time so again where were reacting to emergency situations it and we're not able to really proactively address that the critical facility so a next question is what about the construction timeline construction company is Was An Architect and in consultation with them we would engage our community and our staff and our students and our leadership team in our Board of Education in programming schematic design architectural drawings and that would all be done in concert with our Construction Company the large-scale phasing would first include building a new for 8 building between the existing high school gym in the original ad building that would take approximately 15 to 18 months or so maybe even a little longer and upon completion of that are high school students would move into the new for a building and then the Grandview High high school with Conn's comprehensively be renovated that would again take 14 15 to 18 months and upon completion of that renovation the high school students that were being housed in the 4-H building would move back the Grandview Heights High School Edison Larson students who have been going to school at their the 4-H building would then move into the new for a building and then the original Edison would be leveled and then Park spacing in space would be built in where that building was and that in essence is the facing Additionally the ADA compliance and Safety and Security would be done over the three months in 2 consecutive Summers at Stevenson Elementary important to understand about the phasing of this project is that no students will be placed in modular classrooms the phasing focusing on the one building at a time 248 building first and then moving students into that new building and then focusing on the high school again no students at any time during this facility construction progress would be placed in modular classrooms so our next question is what about the recent Community reappraisal isn't the district getting more money from that do to add a state law known as House Bill 920 the school district receives very little increase on a property reappraisal the increase is only on something called inside Miller and for all of our voted levies as property values increase the tax rates are reduced to generate about the same amount of money for the school district so that is the reason why most districts in a state are forced to return to voters periodically for operating funds House Bill 920 limits School District's ability to realize inflationary increases on property sore next question is what happens if voters approve Issue 6 well if we're successful on November 6th then obviously we would engage an architect in a filter and begin analyzing programming as well as schematic design and begin the phasing as outline but what it would Dallas to do is address are real and current need to address our aging facilities as well as preserve the Excellence that is the Hallmark of Grandview Heights schools so that wraps up our community conversation we thank you for joining us please remember that issue 6 is on the November 6th 2018 ballot you are welcome to complete an absentee ballot from the comfort of your home or vote in person on Election Day should have any further questions please do not hesitate to email Beth Or I some misleading information has been shared and our goal is to make sure that all residents have the facts about issues thank you for your time and your continued support of our schools

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