KSD rent too high for local schools, agencies

By TODD KLEFFMAN
tkleffman@amnews.com

Kentucky School for the Deaf has put the squeeze on local educational programs operating on its campus by requiring them to pay rent.



Boyle County schools has already moved its pre-school and early childhood development programs from KSD's Walker Hall rather than pay $105,000 a year in rent. Those programs will be housed at Woodlawn and Junction City elementaries when school begins in August, said Mike Pittman, director of operations for Boyle schools.



The Community Education program, which is operated by Boyle, will leave KSD's Argo-McClure Hall at the end of the year, Pittman said. Community Ed Director Sueticia Sutton appeared Monday before the Danville City Commission to ask for financial support as the program looks for a new home.



Danville schools has signed a one-year lease to continue to use Barbee Hall for its administrative offices and Bruce Hall as its alternative school in exchange for in-kind services like mowing and building upkeep, and a small financial contribution.



This agreement was reached after the city district balked at paying $105,000 a year in rent and appealed to the state Department of Education, which operates KSD, Superintendent Bob Rowland said.



"They kind of backed us into a corner because our budget had already been prepared and it did not include that rent money," Rowland said.



The Danville Board of Education hopes to purchase Barbee and Bruce halls and the land around them before the one-year lease expires, Rowland said. The state recently declared those two buildings as surplus, but negotiations to buy them have not yet begun, Rowland said.



Knew it was coming



Lisa Gross, spokeswoman for the state Department of Education, said this morning that the local school districts have known for more than a year that they would have to begin paying rent to continue to use the KSD buildings.



Collecting rent from outside agencies that use KSD property will only generate a token amount of revenue, but the gesture is important "to show we are making a good-faith effort at fiscal responsibility," Gross said.



The move comes as KSD is trying to downsize its campus and decide what to do with older buildings that are not part of its future plans. The state Department of Education hopes to get between $15 and $20 million from the legislature next year to fund new buildings and improvements so the KSD campus can be consolidated.



The situation is complicated because KSD is operated by the state Department of Education, under the control of the Kentucky Board of Education, and owned by the state Finance Cabinet.



"It is a sticky situation with the state," Pittman said. "It certainly has put us into a bind. We're all under the Department of Education and we're having to pay rent to each other."



Moving the preschool programs to Woodlawn and Junction City will create overcrowding, Pittman said, but the school district will have to make it work while it tries to secure funding to build a new preschool center within the next two years.



New home for Community Education



Finding a new home for Community Education, which offers classes in computer skills, crime scene investigation, photography, ballroom dancing and other areas, is another matter.



Community Ed has operated primarily out of Argo-McClure Hall for seven years, but that building is included in KSD's future plans. The state offered to let the program stay until July 1, 2008, if it paid $2,000 a month beginning in January, but the program has to vacate the premises by July, Sutton said.



Pittman said the program would move off campus before the end of the year.



Sutton asked the City Commission Monday for $12,000 to pay rent at KSD for six months next year, but commissioners said they didn't have the money and wouldn't want to spend it on a temporary solution.



Commissioner Terry Crowley said he would try to contact state officials in hopes of allowing Community Ed to remain on KSD rent-free until July 1 in order to have more time to find a permanent home.



While some of the Community Ed classes could be offered in school buildings in the evenings, Sutton said it's crucial to find a permanent place for the computer lab, which offers daytime training to people who work at local factories.



The computer training allows workers to upgrade their skills locally rather than travel to Lexington, where similar training is up to five times more expensive and more time-consuming, said Steve Rinehart, who heads the Central Kentucky Regional Jobs Training Consortium, a coalition of area factories that relies on Community Ed to help train workers.



Losing that training "would be a blow to our manufacturing employers and our smaller employers," Rinehart said.Copyright:The Advocate-Messenger 2007