The West Central School Board members held a wind turbine construction meeting recently. Plans are to mobilize some equipment on the grounds on September 15th and evacuation work will begin on September 16th. A groundbreaking ceremony is being planned for September 30th at 9:30 a.m. ET in the football stadium. The community is invited.
The West Central School Board is moving along with the wind turbine project. According to Superintendent Charles Mellon, the next big hurdle will be cleared next week.
“We will be selling the bonds on July 6th,” said Mellon. “With that, we anticipate getting the funding for the project on July 20th. We anticipate some type of groundbreaking in the first part of August as equipment will begin to be delivered and the project completion can be as early as November. We signed the contract a week or so ago and we’re looking for some paperwork from the NIPSCO company and then we will be ready to proceed.”
The Indiana Department of Education has released a preliminary budget estimate for schools and according to Superintendent, A.J. Gappa, the Knox Community School Corporation looks to be in better shape than its neighboring schools. He said that the School Corporation could see an increase in the next two years.
The West Central School Board members discussed the budget at their recent meeting.
“It’s just kind of frustrating when all we’re getting is estimates and we can’t really do a solid projection and yet we should be working on our 2012 budget at this time,” said Superintendent Charles Mellon. “When they talk about flatlining the budget, I think that flatline means that the State may be spending the same amount of money for the next three years in the K-12 education area, but that doesn’t mean that the schools are going to get the same. When I project ours, what we are getting cut this year, $322,000, it almost adds up to $1.3 million over a three year period.”
The West Central Technical Review Committee met recently to discuss the wind turbine project.
“At our last meeting, we were actually going over the proposal from Performance Services, Inc.,” said Superintendent Charles Mellon, a Committee participant. “We talked about the identification of the site. It’s actually going to be on the AG plot. Of course there’s different studies including environmental studies that have taken place. We talked about the development plan and there’s still a lot of components yet to put in place. We’re still waiting on NIPSCO to finalize rates. The final meeting will take place February 25th. The earliest our Board would make a final decision would be on March 17th.”
If the project goes as planned, the turbine could be operational in November of this year.
The West Central School Board held a work session, Thursday, where the Board decided to focus on repairs and improvements with no new construction in the near future.
Friday, December 17th, marks the last day for students at some schools before they embark on winter break. Friday is the last day for students at the Knox Community School Corporation. Teachers will return to classrooms on Monday, January 3rd and students on Tuesday, January 4th. The Knox Community School Board canceled their meeting for Monday, December 20th and will not meet until Monday, January 3rd.
