School districts plan going to voters

Eastwood wants elementary; Woodmore seeks $4.5M auditorium

Renderings show the proposed auditorium that Woodmore schools will build at the junior high if voters approve a levy. Woodmore is asking taxpayers for an additional 1.98 mills for 25 years. It would cost the owner of a $100,000 home $69.30 a year.

WOODMORE SCHOOLS

Renderings show the proposed auditorium that Woodmore schools will build at the junior high if voters approve a levy. Woodmore is asking taxpayers for an additional 1.98 mills for 25 years. It would cost the owner of a $100,000 home $69.30 a year.

PEMBERVILLE, Ohio — The Eastwood and Woodmore school districts have more in common than being educational neighbors. In November, both school systems plan to ask taxpayers to approve a levy request for new construction.

The Eastwood plan is to build an 80,000-square-foot elementary school on the central campus in Troy Township next to the middle school. It would house fewer than 700 kindergarten through fifth-grade students.

Woodmore officials want to add a $4.5 million auditorium at the high school with a seating capacity of 600. It would be located where the junior high — formally known as the Hetrick Wing — is now.

The wing will be demolished when the junior high moves from Elmore to the new building under construction for prekindergarten through eighth grade in Woodville.

The transfer of elementary students is slated for this year’s winter break, and the junior high students will be in the building in the fall of 2015, said Superintendent Linda Bringman, who is optimistic voters will approve the tax request.

She noted the district has no other auditorium, and “the community really values the arts and academics.”

Woodmore is asking taxpayers for an additional 1.98 mills that would extend for 25 years. It would cost the owner of a $100,000 home $69.30 annually.

In the Eastwood district, the Ohio School Facilities Commission would cover 37 percent of the $19.4 million cost of the elementary school project.

Renderings of proposed auditorium that Woodmore schools will build at the junior high if voters approve a levy. NOT BLADE PHOTO

Eastwood voters will be presented with a request for 3.06 mills, but the district will have to collect only 1.8 to 1.84 mills because of a tax abatement agreement with Home Depot Inc. that will pay $675,000 annually to the district starting in January, Superintendent Brent Welker said.

Additionally, the board would collect only 0.5 mills of the district’s authorized 1.1 mill permanent improvements levy. The net additional cost to the owner of a $100,000 home would be $1.62 annually.

“Without Home Depot, we would not be looking at doing this, because nobody has the appetite for a tax increase,” Mr. Welker said.

Home Depot is building a 1.6 million-square-foot distribution warehouse in a 460-acre joint economic development zone that Troy Township and Toledo agreed to in 2010. The company will make payments to the district for 15 years.

Mr. Welker said $303,000 of the Home Depot revenue will be used to service debt.

The remaining $372,000, along with income from the new millage, would be used to pay for the elementary school.

The Eastwood district also is building a bus garage to replace the building that was destroyed by fire in January. Seven buses were moved from harm by fast-acting staffers and a Wood County sheriff’s deputy responding to the alarm.

The fire destroyed the district’s records, but the cost of the garage is covered by insurance.

Contact Carl Ryan at: carlryan@theblade.com or 419-724-6095.