Construction delays complicate district plans

With low enrollment numbers affecting the Creston Community School District budget, superintendent Deron Stender was prepared to supplement some of that lost money through the closure of the Early Childhood Center on North Elm Street.

However, many of those cost savings go out the window if the North Elm Street ECC is still in use. At Monday’s board meeting, Stender said construction on the new ECC build is officially behind schedule. This may impact the scheduled move-in date prior to the beginning of the 2025/26 school year.

During the December school board meeting, Stender shared the district would be saving money with the movement of the ECC to Academic Avenue since students and food would no longer need to be transported from the main campus to the North Elm Street location. Additionally, custodial services would be consolidated to the main campus.

At a meeting with contractors Jan. 15, the district was told the completion date was being pushed back to October, with the superintendent suspecting more delays to come. What does that mean for ECC students?

Where?

Stender had mulitple ideas, none of which he said were ideal. The worst case scenario would mean staying at the North Elm Street location until semester break next January. However, another option would involve being creative with space at the Creston Elementary/Middle School.

“There’s roughly eight classes we’d have to find space to use temporarily in the elementary/middle school. They can be all over, first floor, second floor, shifted into other classrooms, even temporary spaces on the stage,” Stender said. “It’s not ideal, but none of it’s ideal when we can’t get into the building until October, November, December. We make the best with what we can.”

Stender explained there’s a reason he’s calling this idea temporary. While the students might technically fit in the interim classrooms, that doesn’t mean everything is up to code.

“This is what enters my head, hearing people say, if you can fit everybody in there in an interim basis, why did you build that new wing? Well those interim spaces are not going to be up to codes, they’re temporary,” Stender said. “They don’t meet the codes for a preschool or for our 3- or 4- or 5-year-olds which has bathrooms and all the amenities that we have for our youngest children and earliest learners that is declared by state code. Can we get by for a couple months? Yes. Do we want to do that forever? No.”

The board had originally looked at renovating the EMS building to incorporate the ECC students. However, these changes would have resulted in a minimum cost of $14 million and nowhere to educate the students during construction.

Another option, which would work in conjunction with find classroom space in the EMS, is the change the order of priority in the ECC build. At the Jan. 15 meeting, Stender asked if it was possible to have four classrooms and the office space finished by August.

“That would allow kindergarten to start in their spaces. If there’s going to be construction going on, we would do everything we could to mitigate that for safety purposes,” Stender said. “Then we’d only have to find four temporary spaces for preschool or JK for those classes.”

Contractors said the cause for the delay in the construction completion date was due to a difficulty in procuring steel beams, which is needed before roofing can be placed. The beams are now scheduled to arrive in February. In the meantime, the crew is getting a head start on renovating the office space.

Even with a delay, Stender said Keystone Equity Group, LLC is interested in purchasing more land parcels from the school district, along with the land already agreed upon by a purchase agreement in May. The company is working with the city of Creston to receive TIF funding.

Budget

Even if the district is moved out of the North Elm Street building before the next school year, budget cuts will still need to be made. Stender said he understands the confusion of needing to cut positions while constructing an $18 million expansion.

“I want us to go back to is why we got to the point of building that wing. For several years, we started looking at the gym and the problems that we had underneath the surface with the caving culvert,” Stender said. “It was determined that it was collapsing underneath. If you looked at the cost to fix that, as well as the cost to renovate this building, it was roughly $14 million.”

Stender said the board compared that cost to constructing a new ECC, along with the cost savings of moving the students to the same space as the EMS, and they didn’t think it was worth renovating.

“That was a decision by the board. I believe it was a good decision, I just don’t want people to forget how we got to that point. It wasn’t just, we’ve got $18 million, let’s spend it here,” Stender said. “We have the revenue purpose statement and the bond, that was passed and approved by the school board for that to happen and that’s using borrowing on those future revenues that are generated to help pay for the payments on that facility.”

Money received through the bond cannot be used for compensation.

Regarding personnel cuts, Stender said he has already begun speaking with staff. Some of the budgetary issues will be offset thanks to the governor’s proposed 2% increase in State Supplementary Assistance. However, some positions will still have to be cut to keep the district’s budget afloat.

“We are probably getting to the point where I may ask for a special meeting in February before the regularly scheduled board meeting, and what I will bring to you is a recommendation of the number of staff members to post for reduction,” Stender said. “No names are released at that time.”

There will also be involuntary transfers to fill in for the cut staff. Individuals will then have to decide whether to accept the involuntary transfer or resign their position.

“We want to give them time if they want to look for other employment, they have the ability to do that while the job market starts to get hot in February and March,” Stender said. “We look at licensures they have and their ability to move into a position that is open. If they say no, then it reshuffles the deck and the next person that has that licensure will have the opportunity to go there.”

The next regular school board meeting will be 5:30 p.m. Feb. 24 in the boardroom at 801 N. Elm St.