School Board Transfers $1.25 Million to Capital Reserve Fund

The school board this week transferred $1.25 million into the district's capital reserve fund for several projects including the new geothermal heating and cooling system at .

That money is in addition to between $2.5 million and $3 million previously set aside for the projects, according to business manager Jack Myers. But he said the need did not come as a surprise and the extra money does not represent overall increased spending.

"This was money unspent in other areas," he said. Those areas, he added, include salaries and benefits and utilities.

Myers said new regulations require school districts to identify the specific purposes of capital reserve fund transfers for end-of-year budgets. In addition to the Valley project, the $1.25 million is needed for improvements to sports fields, remediation or removal of underground oil tanks, vehicles and computer infrastructure.

The board in March awarded $6.4 million in contracts to install a series of 100 wells outside the Valley school through which water would circulate to heat and cool the building -- a system similar to those used as the Snyder and Struble schools.

That money was coming from both capital reserves and a 2007 bond.

Myers said this week the Valley system is working and the project is close to completion.

It was not immediately clear how much of the $1.25 million is targeted at the Valley project or how that figure breaks down among the other expenditures.

Earlier this fall, Myers estimated the overall cost of remediating or removing about a dozen underground oil tanks at $250,000.