Facility Needs

      It is not a secret that the facilities in the Powell County School District have significant needs.   During our District Facility Planning process just this last year, we noted nearly $50,000,000 worth of renovations and building projects that we consider either a need or a want.  These needs do not include the building of our current Stanton Elementary School construction or the repair of the Powell County Middle School gym wall because those projects were planned prior to completion of the District Facility Plan.  A District Facility Plan is required by the Kentucky Department of Education to guide facility creation and renovation in a district.   It is created by a team of school and community people who give input to architects and engineers who review our buildings and determine what repairs and upgrades are needed.  Our District Facility Plan can be found on our website under Buildings and Grounds at the following link: District Facility Plan.

     The District Facility Plan is broken down into 5 priorities.  Priority 1 is the top priority and includes the security vestibules at Bowen and Clay City Elementary Schools.  Priority 2 is the next level of priority and includes other renovations or additions to current facilities.  These items include things such as roof repair and replacement, HVAC replacement, windows, doors, hardware, electrical needs, flooring, etc. at all of our school buildings.  It also includes renovations that will be needed to bring the alternative school to the current Stanton Elementary School.  Priority 3 includes building a new auditorium for the high school.  The needs for the current Stanton Elementary being converted to a central office are listed under Priority 4 for management and support areas.  This priority also includes renovating the maintenance building and bus garage. 

     The determination of what types of projects fit into each category is made by the Kentucky Department of Education.  Prior to legislative action, all athletic facilities had to be included in Priority 5 and could not be built with funds restricted for facility improvement.  However, House Bill 678 passed in 2022 allows Boards of Education to use restricted funds to pay for athletic facilities.  In 2024, House Bill 727 passed allowing this process to continue.  This is why under the High School on Priority 2 a new baseball and softball field are listed with a note of HB727-2024 REG.  That means the planning committee and the Board agree that these two athletic projects are a high need for our district, and we can use restricted funds for the projects.

     It is important to note that in order to spend money coming from the state or from local building fund dollars, from the local nickel tax, or to take out bonds for projects, they have to appear on this District Facility Plan.  The local nickel tax is very important for this district because the funding it brings in locally is currently equalized by state tax dollars.  Additionally, without the nickel tax that was recently implemented, we would not have qualified for additional funding support from the state in the House Joint Resolution that was just passed.  Because we have invested in a new school, we do not have significant bonding potential to take care of other projects, but the school was the number one priority and is a great investment for our students.  We have been waiting to see if the legislature would approve the gap funding that we have known about since 2022 because knowing how much money the legislature will allocate to the project lets us determine what is next in the list of priorities on the District Facility Plan.

History of House Joint Resolution 32- Why is this funding available to Powell County Schools?

     On July 20, 2022, the Capital Planning Advisory Board held a meeting.  In the minutes of that meeting, a Kentucky Department of Education representative, Mr. Chay Ritter, made a presentation on the impact of inflation on current school facility construction projects taking place at that time.  He referenced four school projects and Representative Bobby McCool said it was his understanding that at least 12-14 additional school projects were insufficiently funded due to inflation and the rising cost of construction materials.  Mr. Ritter said he would check on the number of schools, and Representative McCool asked Mr. Ritter to provide a report at the September 14, 2022, meeting.  This planning meeting was the beginning of the possibility of receiving additional funding for the Stanton Elementary building project because there were plans underway for that school. 

     On August 18, 2022, a survey was sent to superintendents to gather information about projects that were started and additional funds were needed.  My first day of employment as Superintendent in Powell County was August 8, 2022.  I received this email from the architect on our project on August 19, 2022, and immediately began working to gather the required information.  All information was quickly submitted to KDE, and on September 2, 2022, Mr. Ritter submitted a letter back with the requested information including a list of 21 school projects in need of additional funding.  I tell you all of this to let you know this funding was for specific projects.    

     From September of 2022 until now we have been watching the movement of what became known as gap funding for these districts to close the gap on insufficiently funded projects.  During this time, we developed new plans for the new Stanton Elementary School and started the construction.  There were multiple conversations with our representative, Mr. Wesley, on how important this funding was to our district.    He came to our district one day, and we also went to Frankfort to discuss it with him.  He even came to one of our Board meetings to tell us about some of the ideas he had for the Powell County Schools, and one of our Board members asked him about the gap funding.  He assured us that he would support the funding.

     During the 2024 legislative session, House Bill 6 was developed.  This bill listed several financial appropriations, one of which was funding for the schools listed on the gap funding list.  HB6 passed approving the funding, but there was a provision for all districts on the list to undergo an audit by an accounting firm prior to releasing the funding.

     On October 22, 2024, I received the first email from this audit firm letting me know we would get more communication about what was required.  We began the process of collecting and submitting required documents, and on January 29, 2025, we submitted the final audit documents.  We passed all areas of the audit and received confirmation that Powell County Schools would be included in the final list submitted to the legislature.

     The funding for this project was appropriated in the 2024 legislative session, and the vote on House Joint Bill 32 was simply to release the funding to the districts on the list that still needed the funding and passed all audit tests.  Estill County was not on the list.  They did not have a school project in place prior to this timeframe.  They were not taken off this list because they were never on the list.  Estill County is seeking funding for a completely separate building project, and it was not related to this funding in any way.  Voting no to releasing this funding to the Powell County School district and the other district projects on this list after the money was already approved if districts passed the audit tests makes no sense to me.  We had discussed the importance of this funding to our school district numerous times with our representative and were promised that it would be supported.  Even though our representative did not support this resolution, it passed with overwhelming support from 90 other representatives, so it has moved on to the senate.

Were There Offers of Assistance That Powell County Schools Turned Down?

    There is a lot of misinformation about other funding that our representative supposedly offered us and we turned down.  Some of the things I have heard he has told people that he offered our district were a football field and track, a new weight room, and an aviation program.  The truth is, there was no funding offered for anything.  I believe that most people realize that a new football field and track alone would cost over $2,000,000.  Money for athletic facilities rarely comes through the legislative process, but if there was a real offer, there would be documentation in the form of a resolution similar to this one or some other legislative action.  There would be something in writing proving that the money was there and we did not accept it.  Again, I believe most people realize that if we were truly offered this type of funding, we would never turn it down.  If anyone is interested in the truth, you would have to ask our representative for proof of the offer of funds to see that it simply does not exist.

     Our representative did attend one of our school board meetings and said that he was going to provide an airplane hanger for us to use for airplane mechanic training.  He had never spoken with us prior to this meeting about an airplane hanger and did not follow up with his plans on how he was going to make this possible or discuss where he thought the hanger might be located.  He also mentioned obtaining a flight simulator for our students to use, but again, he had not discussed this prior to the meeting and did not come back with any information on how to obtain this opportunity for our students.

     I did have an offer of assistance from a parent of one of our students to gather a group of community members to fundraise and build a new soccer field. While I truly appreciate the idea of raising money through community efforts, there were several things that made this not a feasible option.  First, the school system doesn’t own a piece of property large enough to put a new soccer field other than where the current football field is located.  Additionally, there is a process with the Kentucky Department of Education we have to follow to build any project.  We have to complete a form for KDE approval on a project and list all our funding sources to show we won’t start a project and not be able to complete it.  We have to list the cost of an architect and engineer and all expenses for the project.  Doing everything we need to improve the football field into a turf field for football and soccer, expand the track, improve the fieldhouse, change the lighting, etc. would cost well over $2.5 million.  We are not allowed to even start a project until we can demonstrate that we have the funding for the entire project AND a 5% contingency.   Fundraising this amount is a big deal.  We can accept donations, but we can’t accept small donations from numerous people or businesses and hold the funds for a project that is in the millions because we risk not being able to do the project if it is not fully funded.   And again, we are not allowed start on a project until we have proof that we are able to fund the entire thing and have all the plans in place.

Have facility needs simply been neglected?

     If you look at the list of needs in the current District Facility Plan you can see that the cost of taking care of the facility needs in the districts is very high.  Prior to very recent legislative action, districts could not spend certain funding sources on Priority 5 projects which is where athletic facilities were placed on the plan.  Before Powell County put the nickel tax in place, the district used an energy savings bond for major upgrades to HVAC issues to the Middle School.  We make payments from our general fund in the amount of almost $380,000 each year paying back that bond and our new school bus bonds and will have a payment through the year 2036.  Additionally, the district saw the need for a new elementary school, and by implementing the nickel tax we were able to start that project and make the new school a reality.  In my opinion, facility needs have not been neglected.  Large projects have been completed that needed to be completed at the time, and each project takes significant funding.  SEEK funding and even the nickel tax revenue is all based on attendance in our district, and as our enrollment and attendance percentage goes down, so does our funding capacity.  Each administration over the past several years has accomplished facility projects that they believed were the highest priority to the district, and athletics facilities could not be completed with restricted funds.  Because we have so much debt out of general fund to repay bonds, athletic facilities have been on hold.

Could ESSER money have been spent on facilities to help fund needed projects?

     When ESSER money was first released to districts to help respond to the COVID pandemic, the first round could have been spent on almost anything.  A district could have likely gotten approval for outdoor athletic facilities at the time.  The second and third round of ESSER funds were more restrictive.  Districts could not use these funds for athletics facilities but could use the funds to expand facilities to spread students out or to repair heating and air conditioning units to improve the quality of the air circulation.  It could also be used for roof repair.  Powell County did utilize ESSER funds for the roof replacement of Bowen Elementary, Clay City Elementary, and the current Stanton Elementary.  I was not working in Powell County when the ESSER funding was released to the district and do not know how the priorities were determined for the use of the funding.  I was able to help prioritize the finalization of the funding to put as much into projects that needed to be completed as possible.  I can’t go back and change anything about how funds were spent and am sure that there were a lot of resources put towards battling the pandemic.   I have to focus on where we are now and how to best prioritize the projects we need to do now with the funding we have available now.

What Plans Do We Have for Facility Improvements?

     The new Stanton Elementary School has been the Board’s highest priority, and it will be completed before the end of the 2025 calendar year.  We have been waiting to see if we were going to qualify for any of the gap funding because we have to ensure we can complete that project before moving on to anything else.  Knowing what funding will be provided by the legislature allows us to know how much more we will have to take out in bonds for that project and what else we can tackle with additional bond sales.

     After the elementary school was started, it was brought to our attention that one wall at the Middle School gymnasium was not structurally stable.  We had multiple structural engineers evaluate the wall, and all agreed it needed to be repaired so it would not be dangerous in the future.  While there was not immediate danger noted, extending that project was not an option for the safest environment possible.  We have the plans for tearing down the wall and replacing it, the gym floor, the gym roof, and other aspects of gym repair.  The roof work for that project will begin the week of March 10 and the reconstruction of the wall will begin the first week in April.

     Other high priorities that we feel we have to do prior to upgrading our athletic facilities are roof and HVAC replacements for our buildings.  We feel it would be irresponsible to allow roofs to leak and students to not be comfortable in classrooms in regard to room temperatures in order to build an athletic complex.  The safety vestibules are also a high priority to stop a potential threat from entering directly into the building.  We are evaluating the costs of all of these needs now to see how much these projects will cost and know what else we can do.

     We know that in order to expand our track to a regulation 8 lane track, we have to move our softball field.  Also, we don’t currently have our own baseball field. In 2023, we paid an architect to develop a master plan for our athletic facilities to help us determine where we could locate certain athletic fields.   The architect gave the Board several options of possible locations, and an area of property near our new elementary school was selected where a softball and baseball field could sit beside each other making it easy for fans to attend one or both games at the same time.  There would also be the possibility of having one press box to serve both fields.  We are at the place now where we are planning soil tests to make sure this property will be good for a turf baseball and softball field.

     While we own the property where these fields will be located, we know that we will have to get special permits to build these fields.  Just like we did for the new Stanton Elementary School, we have to examine the need for permits to relocate streams or to mitigate the streams from harm.  These streams are not large streams putting out excessive water, but the Army Corp of Engineers requires relocation or mitigation.  We are beginning the process of looking into the cost of these permits so we can start sitework on the fields.

     The bottom line is that right now we are evaluating how much bonding potential we have and how much all the projects we have left to do will cost.  We know that we will not be able to fund the entire District Facility Plan needs, but we are working as hard as we can to renovate existing facilities and build new athletic facilities for our students.  We know that all of these projects are important, but we have to work within our means of funding.

If I have other questions or want more information on something in this article, where do I go?

     This article is intended to give an overview of the work we have done and what we are looking at next.  If you have any questions, I can be reached by phone at 606-663-3300 or email at sarah.wasson@powell.kyschools.us.  We also discuss the status of the school district and some of our plans at our Board meetings which take place the third Tuesday of each month.  Meetings begin at 6:00 p.m. and are held at the Powell County Middle School Library.

Sarah Wasson

Superintendent, Powell County Schools