{"id":6014,"date":"2013-06-12T07:51:42","date_gmt":"2013-06-12T11:51:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/?p=6014"},"modified":"2013-06-12T10:02:50","modified_gmt":"2013-06-12T14:02:50","slug":"casd-responds-to-backlash-over-plans-to-purchase-building","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/?p=6014","title":{"rendered":"CASD responds to backlash over plans to purchase building"},"content":{"rendered":"

Finance committee members say building will save district $500k a year<\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

By Kyle Carrozza<\/span><\/strong>,\u00a0Staff Writer, The Times<\/span><\/em><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\"CumberlandInsurance\"<\/a>

This Sadsbury building is proposed to replace the Benner Education Center as the base for Coatesville Area School District administration as well as housing a healthcare center<\/p><\/div>\n

CALN \u2013 Coatesville Area School District finance committee members addressed concerns over last month\u2019s decision to negotiate the purchase of the Cumberland Insurance Group building, at the monthly Finance and Personnel Committee meeting of Board of Education, Tuesday night. At the meeting held in the 9\/10 Center auditorium, committee members said that purchasing the building would save the district money in the long run.<\/p>\n

Last month\u2019s decision to open up negotiations for the building, which will be used for administrative and healthcare purposes, sparked controversy among some residents who said that money could be better used toward hiring new teachers or funding the Air Force Junior ROTC program, which is currently relying on independent fundraisers to continue operations.<\/p>\n

Board member Joseph Dunn said that legally the district could not use the money for these things. The money used to purchase the building came from a bond fund, which the district is only allowed to use in certain capacities.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s important to understand that bond funds can only be used for capital assets or to retire other bonds,\u201d he said. \u201cThey can\u2019t be used for operating expenses.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dunn said that expenses such as teacher salaries or paying for costs to run scholastic programs would be considered operating expenses.<\/p>\n

Purchasing the building allows the district, in a partnership with Integrity Healthcare, to open up its own health facility, which will save an estimated $500,000 per year in healthcare costs, money which would usually go to hospitals and other facilities not run by the district or Integrity Healthcare.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the medical center doesn\u2019t come, there are $500,000 of teacher cuts that have to occur,\u201d said Dunn.<\/p>\n

He also said that the district considered renting but could not afford to. Buying the Cumberland Insurance building seems like the best option because of how up-to-date it is and the building is, \u201cso far below market value.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another factor that played into the decision was the status of Benner, which the new building is slated to replace. Benner is the district\u2019s most expensive building to run \u2014 the Lincoln Highway building, built in 1915 was the original site of Coatesville High School \u2014 and the board said they it was trying to find sources of income other than taxpayers.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the things we\u2019ve been trying to do for the past couple of years is look at the older buildings, look at the buildings that are more expensive to run and replace them and bring in revenue,\u201d said School Board President J. Neil Campbell. \u201cIt\u2019s a business decision.\u201d<\/p>\n

Campbell added that once operations are switched to the new building, they can then sell Benner. He cited the potential of selling Gordon to Lincoln University in the future as another example of buildings generating revenue.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Finance committee members say building will save district $500k a year By Kyle Carrozza,\u00a0Staff Writer, The Times CALN \u2013 Coatesville Area School District finance committee members addressed concerns over last month\u2019s decision to negotiate the purchase of the Cumberland Insurance Group building, at the monthly Finance and Personnel Committee meeting of Board of Education, Tuesday […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":6021,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3,1],"tags":[2319,2320,29,2318],"class_list":["post-6014","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-featured","category-uncategorized","tag-benner","tag-bond-issues","tag-coatesville-area-school-district","tag-cumberland-insurance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6014","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6014"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6014\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6021"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6014"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6014"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6014"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}