The Tri-Township School Board continues making financing arrangements for its high school relocation project. Board members passed a series of resolutions Thursday taking the first step in the lease-rental process.
It’s typically used to let schools and other government entities borrow more money than a general obligation bond would allow, by transferring the building’s ownership to a legally-separate building corporation. “The building corporation will purchase a portion of the building at closing and lease it back to the corporation,” Superintendent Kelly Shepherd explained. “The corporation then pays the lease rental from property taxes.”
Shepherd noted that Tri-Township has used the process in the past for other projects. Thursday’s resolutions approve the form of the lease and the building plans, verify that the school board has determined that there’s a need for the project, and re-approve the formation of the building corporation and its three-member board. The next step will be to hold a public hearing on the lease.
During Thursday’s meeting, Shepherd acknowledged that skyrocketing construction costs are a concern, but he doesn’t expect that to change the amount of space that can be added to the Wanatah School. “Clearly, I believe that it’s having an impact,” he said, “but that’s the nice thing: PSI, Performance Services is really working closely with us to make sure that we haven’t lost anything from our original plan for it.”
The addition will allow Tri-Township to move high school classes from LaCrosse to Wanatah and close the historic LaCrosse School after the 2021-2022 school year. While plans are still up in the air for the original 1915 LaCrosse building, the plan is to keep using the attached Tiger Den gym. The school board agreed to have Tremco conduct an $1,800 scan of the gym’s roof to look for moisture issues in the insulation.
