The process of building a new Grant’s Lick Elementary School began around 2019 with the purchase of 80 acres in southern Campbell County near Plum Creek Church.
With the current elementary school building being built in 1936 and a growing population in southern Campbell County, the Campbell County School District couldn’t pass up the opportunity for the large plot of land at a discount, securing the property for just $900,000.
Almost three years later, the site still sits empty. The problem was trying to get the state to recognize Campbell County Schools’ need for aid with funding for the school. With the help of Senator Wil Schroder, Rep. Joe Fischer and Sen. Chris McDaniel, they were able to convey the need and get some help from the state.
Funding for the new Grant’s Lick Elementary School went back into the state’s budget, and $9,073,900 was approved by both houses of the General Assembly. They signed off on the committee report and House Bill 1, the budget. The district is now waiting for the bill to be signed off by the Governor.
The journey to acquire those funds has not been easy. The Kentucky Department of Education uses the Kentucky Facility Inventory Classification System to determine which schools in the state are in most dire need of replacement or significant upgrades.
“They make a priority list,” Campbell County Commissioner and former educator of 28 years Geoff Besecker said. “Campbell County has a number of schools that rank number one, number two and number three on this Kentucky Facility Inventory Classification System; these three schools are in significant need, Grant’s Lick of replacement, and Cline and Reiley Elementary for major overhauls.”
For major capital expenditures, the school has what they call bonding capacity. As Besecker describes it, schools can issue bonds, and those bonds are then sold out to pay for significant construction projects and capital improvements. Campbell County Schools has been cautious in the spending of their expenditures, knowing that there are a lot of potential renovations coming up that need to be addressed.
“Not only does Grant’s Lick have to be addressed, but Cline Elementary in Cold Spring, Riley Elementary in unincorporated Campbell County, a new middle school, the high school is also now over 25 years old,” Besecker said. “And so, for example, an over 25-year-old building, there’s major renovations that anybody would do on any building. New roofs, new HVAC, things that are going to need addressed with upkeep. So, when you compile all that together, Campbell County Schools has been fairly frugal, and knowing that this stuff is coming up, they’ve tried to maintain some of their bonding capacity.”
Superintendent of Campbell County Schools David Rust added to what Besecker said, stating that the current middle school has 1,200 students, making it the third-largest in the state. The district has needed a second middle school for years.
“We couldn’t spend the money on building a new Grant’s Lick right now when we’ve been trying to reserve our bonding potential to build a new middle school,” Rust said.
On the surface, it appeared that the district didn’t need help from the state because, according to Besecker, Campbell County School District has about $47 million in bonding capacity. When you start crunching numbers for the total cost of repairs and new facilities, that number quickly dwindles.
“We’ve got Grant’s Lick Elementary, which is approximate to cost $25 million,” Besecker said. “You’ve got Riley and Cline Elementary; to renovate those is somewhere around $18 million. And then the cost of building a second middle school, depending on what happens with the litigation that’s ensuing, is 10s of millions of dollars there. So that eats up that bonding capacity very quickly.”
The 80 acres of land purchased by the school district has the potential for a second school to be built on it down the road.
“It sets us up for the future because as the population moves south in Campbell County, it gives us a large parcel on which we can plan deep into the future,” Rust said.
Rust said Joe Fischer was an integral part of working with the General Assembly to change the budget bill to allow school districts with high bonding capacity to acquire funding from the state still.
“We just had to get the language change that enabled us to be allocated the money while we still had bonding potential,” Rust said. “And that’s what this General Assembly session was all about. It was about not only getting them (Grant’s Lick) on the list, which they have been eligible, the issue was we needed a language that enabled them to be funded even though we currently had the resources to do it, but we were holding them back for another Middle School. That was really the issue. And so, this year, we were successful.”
Rust said Campbell County is not the only school district to benefit from language change in the budget bill. Pendleton County, Grant County and Bellevue Independent school districts had similar cases of saving bonding capacity for other projects.
“They all needed that same language that we did because they were allocated in the bill offers of assistance, and they too had other projects that they were reserving money for,” Rust said. “And so, because there were multiple school districts that had other priorities in addition to what had been identified on the urgent needs list, it wasn’t just a one-district deal.”
Rust said even if Governor Andy Beshear vetoes the budget, his veto can be overridden by the house.
“I expect it to come out and be funded. I think at this point, the issues that we had pretty much have been resolved at the General Assembly level,” Rust said.
Once the Governor signs the bill, Rust said they should be able to access the funds immediately. The district is still finalizing designs for the new school building, but Rust said he is hopeful to be in a good position in six to nine months to sell bonds and begin the construction process.
