Warsaw Community School Corporation Superintendent Dr. David Hoffert talks to the school board Tuesday. Photo by Jackie Gorski, Times-Union.

By Jackie Gorski
Times-Union

WARSAW — Warsaw School Board held its first hearing for general obligation bonds for corporation projects Tuesday, July 15.

Timothy Shelly, with Warrick and Boyn LLP, said Indiana law requires public school corporations to hold at least two public hearings and adopt a resolution for preliminary pre-determination to issue bonds for a project that has a total project cost in excess of certain thresholds or if the school corporation has a debt service tax rate above a certain amount.

“These public hearings are for future consideration of resolutions at the very beginning of the legal process. Please know that no board action is legally required at this first hearing,” Shelly said, noting the hearing was to hear public comments.

Chief Financial Officer Steven Boyer said Indiana school corporations are primarily funded by income, sales and property taxes. The revenue through those taxes are appropriated primarily to the education and operations funds, which allows WCS to pay its employees and operate its facilities “and that constitutes most of those funds.”

The education and operation fund appropriations don’t allow for the maintenance or expansion of facilities or the acquisition of capital assets. For needed renovations and repairs and capital asset acquisitions, the school corporation relies on the issuance of general obligation bonds to generate some additional revenue.

Knowing bond issuances impact the community, WCS “has and continues to remain committed to conservative and responsible facility planning and capital asset management,” Boyer said. Back in 2022, a facility study was done to help WCS identify their greatest capital project needs. Those projects will help WCS increase their efficiency so they’re maximizing the value of the community’s tax dollars. Boyer said WCS plans to limit the bond issuance in 2025 so property taxes in the community remain steady. In August, Kosciusko County will publish its updated assessed property values and WCS will learn its bond issue limit, which they expect to be about $12 million.

Board President Heather Reichenbach asked Superintendent Dr. David Hoffert to walk the board through the proposed projects that are going to meet some of the needs Boyer talked about.

Hoffert gave a history of Lakeview Middle School and the corporation. He said WCS has a 10-year facilities plan to make sure all of its facilities are updated as it has 13 school buildings, among other buildings.“We want to make sure that we are planning far enough ahead and so some of things you are going to be hearing about tonight have really been in the process for the past five to six years,” Hoffert said, noting people might assume WCS has already done those projects because they’ve been talking about them.

He said WCS wanted to make wise decisions and preparing students for the future and not the past.When they look at projects, Hoffert said they want to specifically look at Lakeview a little more.

A couple months ago, Hoffert talked to the board about different ideas the school corporation was looking at with the middle school. The land was donated by the Gast family and was used as a quarry at one time. Hoffert said the ground is very steady. Lakeview was built in 1962 as a high school. It transitioned to a middle school in the early 1990s.

Lakeview has considerable use that goes along with it. There are some Warsaw Area Career Center and Gateway Education Center classes housed at the middle school. Over the past five or six years, WCS has looked into a couple different options and had a couple different architectural or construction companies take a look to help WCS see what the facility needs are, he said. He said electricity and piping has changed over the years.

Hoffert talked about four possible options when dealing with Lakeview.

The first option is to build a new middle school at a different site. The second option would be to renovate Lakeview. The third option would be to combine Lakeview and Edgewood middle schools at the Edgewood site. The fourth option would be to combine the two middle schools at the Lakeview site.

Hoffert said WCS administrators have visited other middle schools at other districts to compare them to what WCS has.

He said between 2008 and the present, the birth rate has dropped 20%, but “we are predicted to have steady enrollment. A lot of that has to do with our local industry that is in here in the community. And we also know some of the exciting announcements that have taken place inside our community with Slate and Autocam coming here to this area and bringing numerous jobs that come along with them. So, again, these are all things that go into that consideration as we continue looking at these buildings.”

Hoffert said the school corporation wants to make sure any academic programs and needs are being met for the students, as well being efficient in staffing and programming by not being inefficient and repetitive. Hoffert said there are concerns to find an appropriate space and land for a new school for hookups for power and water. WCS has been looking into those areas, but they have been struggling to find the correct piece. If it was a new location, he said there would still have a number of program and efficiency issues that have remained unmet. A new home would need to be found for the WACC and Gateway classes.

He said the benefit for refurbishing the current building is the building is sound. However, as the school corporation continues  to grow, it might not have the possible space.

When looking at combining the middle schools at Edgewood, he said Edgewood is landlocked and there are some traffic concerns that have been brought up. When looking at combing the middle schools at Lakeview, some of the benefits includes creating a true middle school with appropriate programming.WCS was not ready to make a decision Tuesday. The bond projects would be done in 2026. There would be energy savings projects including roofing and HVAC improvements at Lakeview, deferred maintenance improvements, HVAC improvements districtwide and athletic improvements.

In other business, the board:

• Heard from Boyer WCS would like to add a fifth school resource officer for the school corporation so there’s adequate support for all the schools.

• Approved the following grants and donations: $500 from E. Max Hauth for the Warsaw Community High School Fribley Fund; $3,000 from the Kosciusko County Community Foundation for use toward programs affected by state and federal funding cuts; and $5,000 from the Esther Pfleiderer Charitable Trust to support the 2025 Speaker Series.

• Approved 2025-26 staff handbook updates.