Knox School Board Hires Architects to Conduct Facility Study

The Knox Community School Corporation is moving ahead with a facilities study. The school board voted Monday to hire architectural firm Schmidt Associates to do the work, according to Superintendent Dr. William Reichhart. He says the study will cost about $21,000.

School officials are already looking to replace the roof at the high school. The study would identify some other needs that may come up over the next few years.

Reichhart says funding the potential upgrades may involve a property tax referendum in 2019. But he says tax rates would not increase beyond their current levels. “Taxpayers would not see any tax increase, even if we do the bond issue that’s coming up at the high school, the $5 million bond issue,” he says. “And then if our facilities study determines that we need to do something with facilities, in terms of either our elementary building or doing some sort of a building project, that we would structure that in a way that, hopefully, our taxpayers would not be impacted.”

Reichhart explains that as the corporation pays off about $14 million worth of debt at the middle school, it could add a new project costing up to $15 million without impacting the tax rate.