Roughly $16.74 million in financing for construction renovation projects at White’s Tower Elementary and Piner Elementary was approved by the Kenton County Board of Education Monday night.
The work at Piner is an augmentation to renovations that began about three to four years ago, which missed some key parts of the school, namely the gym, parts of the restroom facilities, some areas of the parking lot, as well as interior and exterior work here and there. A construction contract for the work was approved last month.
The White’s Tower work, on the other hand, will focus on updating the building’s HVAC system. The work will require the ceiling to be torn out, meaning those components will need to be replaced and repainted, as well. The affected hallways will also get new floor tiles.
The second major part of the White’s Tower project will focus on a problem known as stacking, which refers to cars lining up behind each other when attempting to enter the campus.
Understandably, bumper-to-bumper car congestion can create a safety hazard. Cars tend to stack on Harris Pike, from which people turn into the school. Finally, the construction will build a new canopy over the entrance.
The board also approved a construction contract with Morel Construction for the work at White’s Tower on Monday night.
The debt takes the form of roughly $16.74 million in general obligation bonds with allowances for an additional $1.67 million more or any amount less, depending on the needs of the project. General obligation bonds are one of several debt measures public entities use to pay for capital projects. This will be the third time the district has issued general obligation bonds, according to Chief Operations Officer Matt Rigg.
General obligation bonds, unlike other debt instruments like industrial revenue bonds, are backed by the district itself. The city solicits investors to buy bonds, in this case $16.74 million worth, which will provide the district with cash to finance the building’s construction.
The district is then fully on the hook to pay back the principal of that debt plus any interest. In a scenario where the project fails to generate revenue for the repayments, the district would have to make up the money in some other way. In some cases, this could entail raising taxes.