Strong Foundations Capital Project Presentation

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Hi everyone. My name is Chris Clancy. I'm the superintendent of the Clinton Central School District, and I'm here to share some information with you about a proposed capital project called Strong Foundations. I want to tell you a little bit about the title that we've selected for this project, Strong Foundations, because it does have some relevance historically in the district capital project names have really just been aligned with the year that the project has been approved.

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And so the project that we're finishing right now, we've called the 2022 Capital Project because that was when it was approved. This project, we've made the decision that Board of Education and I to call it strong foundations and to give it to give it a name, to provide a little bit more context historically, and also just to help describe the work that's going to happen in the project.

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And so what I believe you'll see as I share some information about this project with you in this presentation, is that the reason we're calling this strong foundations is that the work that is included in this project is very foundational work. A lot of what we are proposing and we hope to include, is work that we need to do in order to maintain our facilities.

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There's also some work that we want to do and are excited to share with you, but we see this project as a very essential and foundational project. And for that reason, we've selected the name Strong Foundations. So I'm going to share some information with you about the project tonight to help you hopefully give you a little bit more context and information to help you make your decision.

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So before we get into the details of the project, there are just a few things I want to talk about related to the district. And the first is our mission statement. And the reason that I have this on the screen is that it's important to remember, acknowledge, and recognize that the decisions that we make as a school district, with the support of our Board of Education, are really centered in our mission statement.

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And that mission statement is ultimately to provide the best, most rigorous, meaningful experience that we can for our students to help them become the really the best that they can be. Projects like this capital project that we are proposing to you help provide, help us to provide the facilities, the spaces and the resources to help help our students reach that mission.

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The second is a relatively new document that we've developed in our school district, called A portrait of a graduate. And the reason that we developed this portrait is to make sure that we identify specific skills, knowledge, content, and really skill set that we hope our graduates are able to leave us with. And so what you see on the screen in front of you is the result of several months of work around and conversations around what we want those items to be.

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And the reason I'm sharing this with you is because I hope that you'll see reflected in the work that we are proposing some of these indicators in our portrait. An example of that specifically is that you'll see a little bit later in the presentation that we're proposing some work to be done in one of our art rooms. And what I see that aligning to is one of our indicators in our portrait called Creative Innovator.

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And that's important for us as a school district to make sure that our students are leaving our district when they graduate with these abilities to persevere, to be determined, and also to make sure that they have spaces and opportunities to think creatively, to to take risks and try new approaches and really persevere through challenges. So this renovated art space that I'll talk to you about in a few minutes, we're hoping will will provide some support around that particular portrait indicator.

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So like our mission, our portrait of a graduate helps drive decisions around programs and in this case, facility and construction work that we hope to do. Before I get into the details of strong foundations, I do think it's important to to pause for a moment, recognize, acknowledge, and celebrate the tremendous and outstanding work that has been accomplished through our 2022 capital project.

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So this is a project that was very large in scope, at a cost of about $18 million, that was approved by voters in December 2022. Construction actually has just about wrapped up, started in August 2024 through October 2025. So we're really at the end of that project, and a tremendous amount of incredible work has been completed through the project and really ultimately through the support of our community.

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And so I put this up here to celebrate and also to to make sure that I think the community for the support, because without that we wouldn't be able to do this work. So on on the screen are just some examples of the work that was completed in this project. A completely new and renovated elementary playground, a new multi-purpose turf field, and several other athletic field renovations, new parking lots, a renovated district courtyard, cafeteria, renovations at the elementary school and the kitchen, and in some of the cafeteria space and both of our libraries, our secondary library, Comets library, and our elementary library both saw complete renovations.

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And this is again, just a sampling of some of the tremendous work that was done through this project. So lots to be proud of, lots to celebrate and and to hopefully continue to use to enhance our student experiences. You will see some work in the spring that is is tied to this project as part of our third phase, our phase.

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See? So we're excited to be able to continue some of that work in a spring. But great work that's happened through this project. So with strong foundations, there are a few things that I want to share with you. The first is not specific to this project, but just some information for our community about how do we how we arrive at the timing and the decision to present a capital project to you.

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So I'll give you some information about that. I'll talk about the history of strong foundations and sort of how we arrived at some of the decisions and the proposals that we're sharing with you tonight. Talk about the scope of the project, the proposed timeline, when we hope to have this work underway, and then certainly some of the financial information tied to the project.

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The first is really not, again, not specific to strong foundations, but just some information that I think is important for everyone to know about how we make decisions about when to present projects to our community. So the Board of Education and the school district worked very closely hand in hand on this, because it's important for a number of reasons.

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And there are really two things that I want to share with you tonight. One of them is that helps us make the decisions around the timing of a project is actually kind of a natural thing, and there is a need for us as a school district to make sure that we're maintaining and upgrading our facility. So just like your home, there are things that will need replacement.

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They need ongoing maintenance, they need to be upgraded. They need to be enhanced and or made more efficient. That will exist in on our campus and in each of our school buildings that need drives the need for capital projects, and sometimes the need for replacement or upgrade for those parts of our facility drives the timing of when those projects need to happen again, very similar to your home.

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If something is broken or needs to be replaced, that that sometimes makes the decision for you about when that work needs to be done. And the second reason or the second way that we second thing that we have to look at with regard to the timing, maybe timing of a capital project is actually related to budget. So our capital projects cost money, and the expenses for those projects are built in to our school district budget.

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And again, similar to perhaps an auto payment or a home payment for a renovation you might do in your home. The the work on our facilities is aided by New York State over a period of years, and it is also paid off by the school district over a period of several years. And there comes a point with projects where the debt is paid off and the aid then ends.

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And in order to help maintain a stable school district budget that we can present to our taxpayers and doesn't create an additional burden to our taxpayers in terms of large tax increases. To stabilize the budget. We've been presented with an opportunity in this particular case, for strong foundations to present you with a capital project, because we have some death falling off, meaning we have a project from several years ago that we're paying off, and we're looking to replace that debt with the debt for a new project to maintain a stable budget.

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And so specifically for strong foundations, when we look at that retiring debt, debt that we're paying off and what we anticipate for New York State building aid for this next project, we're able to present a project to you in the amount of $5.2 million, much smaller in scope than the current project that we're finishing, but substantial and enough to do some great work in our to continue to do some great work in our school district.

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So our Board of Education's finance committee reviewed all of that information with our financial advisor, Doctor Rick Timms. And with that information made the recommendation to the entire board to proceed with a $5.2 million capital project. So that's how we decide of the time, make decisions around the timing. And that's why we're presenting this to you. Now, the second bit of decisions really is related to the work.

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So once we know the amount that we're able to spend in this case $5.2 million. How do we decide where that work can happen and where that money can be spent? And there's a couple of things that we have to think about with that. The first is the location of the construction. So our school campus has three school buildings.

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We have an elementary school, middle and high school. Each of those school buildings has a maximum amount of money that New York State will aid with regard to capital project work. For Clinton, 82% of the cost of capital project work is aided, meaning that for every dollar that we spend in a qualifying dollar that we spend on capital project work, New York State will provide us 82% to reimburse the district $0.82 on that dollar.

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So it's a great subsidy that the state provides to do the important work that we have to do around construction and capital projects. So each of our school buildings has a maximum amount that the state will aid us in a five year period. So that's something called a maximum cost allowance. And when our finance, the Board of Education Finance Committee, looked at those maximum cost allowances and made some decisions about or learned about where those numbers were at, we did learn that Clinton Senior High School has actually met its current maximum cost allowance for this five year period, and the reason for that is that there was a lot of work tied to the high

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school in this $18 million project. Now, because the senior high school has met its maximum cost allowance, it would not be wise of the Board of Education or me to make a recommendation to our community to do additional work in the high school in this strong foundations project. And the reason for that is that we could spend the money, but we would not receive any of that 82% aid back, wouldn't be responsible of us to spend additional money on the high school in this project.

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And so for that reason, we're not recommending any work in the high school, in the Strong Foundations project. The middle school and the elementary school, however, have not met their current maximum cost allowance, and there is some ability in each of those school buildings to spend some money and strong foundations to do work there. And so that is how we arrived at the decision and the recommendation to you to do work in those two schools and not in the high school.

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So once we knew those were the two spaces we could do the work in, how did we decide or what that scope would be? In other words, what are the details of the construction that we're going to recommend in each of those spaces? And to make those decisions? There are a few things that we look at. One is something called a building condition survey.

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Building condition survey is a required process and document that school districts have to produce every five years. And what it is is very similar to a home inspection. If you were purchasing a home, there's always a recommended inspection of the home that you probably do with an inspector, and the inspector walks through the home and makes recommendations to you as the potential buyer about things that look like they're at end of life.

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So roof is 20 years old. You're probably going to have to replace the roof in a few years. Your furnace is ten years old. You probably have ten years left on that or five years left on that. They might comment on appliances or plumbing conditions, and that's really an opportunity for you as the homeowner to kind of say, where, where, where do I have to prioritize the work that I'm going to have to do if I buy this house?

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Well, school districts have to do the same thing. And that's what a building condition survey does with our architectural firm, March Associates. We work together with them to walk through the entire facility, and they help us to identify things that we need to replace, must replace, and should replace based on some of those same decisions. And that's the same time we're able to provide them with some feedback about things that we want to do to our facility as well.

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So the building condition survey ends up being a good balance of some needs and some wants. The Board of Education Facilities Committee is charged with reviewing that information, and also bringing forward some recommendations that they receive as representatives of the community. And then certainly there are lots of opportunities where we have conversations with our staff, with our community members, and they're always willing to share things with us that they'd like to see in our schools.

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In terms of renovation additions or any other kinds of construction. So we put all of that together, and it helps us to create a scope, in this case for both the elementary and middle school. And so this is really just a summary of the history that helped us arrive at the scope that I'm going to be sharing with you tonight.

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We reviewed the Building Condition survey that was completed in 2024. We also reviewed the five year, our our five year capital facilities plan that we also completed in 2024. And that's really just a more detailed version of the Building Condition survey. Our Board of Education Finance Committee met with our financial advisor, Doctor Rick Timms, to help make decisions around the finances around this project.

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Is this the right time to do a project? Yes it is. How much should we be proposing for this project? Made the decision at $5.2 million, and that facilities committee then makes the recommendation to the excuse me, the Finance Committee makes the recommendation to the facilities Committee, and the facilities committee now says, okay, we have a recommended project from finance, and this is where we can do that work.

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What is it that we need to focus our attention on that, that building condition survey. So Facilities Committee met the summer and the fall to make some of those recommendations, ultimately to come up with a recommended scope for the project that was all reviewed this past summer. And then ultimately, the project is presented by both the Finance and Facilities Committee to the entire board.

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So they have an opportunity to ask questions and understand it eventually to adopt the project in order to move forward. And the board did do that in October of 2025. So the scope that we landed on with this project, after reviewing all that information really falls into four categories roofing replacement, addressing our parking lot conditions, a few of our parking lots, and the space that we have for parking, some necessary HVAC work, and then the renovation of a few of our instructional spaces.

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Specifically, what does that look like? You'll see some similarities between both the elementary and the middle school and both the buildings. We're going to be doing some roof replacement. I'll talk about where that is in just a few minutes. At the elementary school, we're looking to reconstruct what we call the cafeteria parking lot or the parking lot that's on the corner of Shenango Ave and Kirkland Ave, on the cafeteria side of the building at the middle school, the theater parking lot.

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We'd like to do some reconstruction and reconfiguration there. And both the elementary and middle school, we'd like to install air conditioning in the cafeterias. The reason for that is that there's a couple of reasons for that. One is that our school building, like most school buildings in the country, were constructed at a time that air conditioning was not the norm in the 50s and 60s and the 30s.

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So it was not part of the construction of the building. And the school year starts in the summer and ends in the summer. And those periods of time tend to be very warm, specifically in areas of our building where there's a second floor. And while this particular capital project Strong Foundation doesn't have the budget to support putting air conditioning in the tire complex, or quite honestly, even on a floor or a wing, we have made the recommendation to install air conditioning in both cafeterias to provide spaces for relief for our students during the school day on those very hot days, and it also provides because of the size of both of those spaces, it provides

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a space where we can relocate a classroom or classrooms if they become particularly warm. Additionally, there is some new law. There's new law in place for school schools in New York State that require us to relocate students and staff if classrooms reach certain temperatures. And so, again, we're just looking to create spaces where we can do that for them.

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The two instructional spaces that we hope to renovate. One is at the elementary school is the large gymnasium, and at the middle school that is the middle school art classroom. And so what I'd like to share with you are some specific images to help provide some additional information about why we're looking to do this work. So this first slide is showcasing two things.

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On the left side of the slide are some images to illustrate current conditions and impact of those conditions in our theater. So the theater roof is original to the construction of the theater in 2003. As you can see from the images, the conditions had deteriorated to a point that the roof needs to be replaced because there are several leaks that are damaging the ceiling and actually starting to come on to the theater stage.

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So not ideal conditions and not good conditions for the long term maintenance of the theater, the elementary school. There's a large section that we're hoping to replace, approximately 50% of the school building that's outlined here in red. That's essentially the entire primary wing of the school, the library and the front part of the school building to include the our classroom and a few other spaces.

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In addition to that, this would include replacement of the roof over the large gymnasium, so a substantial part of the elementary school roof would be replaced for the same reasons. It is out of warranty and beyond end of life and needs to be replaced. These images are of the large gym in the elementary school.

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All of the parts of the large gem of the elementary school are to the 1989 construction. So the floor, the bleachers, the wall mats and the walls are, all are and are in need of replacement. So we're looking to install a new floor, new bleachers, paint the entire space and install some new update the wall conditions as well.

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So would essentially renovate the entire large gym at the elementary school. At the middle school, we're hoping to completely renovate the middle school art classroom. The space where art is taught was actually not designed as an art classroom originally, when the building was built. When art moved into that space, the space was modified to accommodate art and was done so by basically taking equipment and items from other spaces in the building.

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So a lot of the storage that you see in these pictures and that is used by students, has been repurposed from other construction projects. In this case, when the band room was renovated, the instrument storage was was taken from that space and put into this our classroom. And so this would provide for our students really a space that is going to align with the, the, the important work that happens in that space.

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So it will give them a space to be creative, to take risks, to build, to envision what it is that they want to kind of build and create. So exciting to be able to to provide that to our students. This would be. I think, a beautiful showcase of some incredible renovated work for our middle schoolers.

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This image showcases a few things related to the elementary parking lot that we would like to renovate and update, and so the pictures on the left show current conditions of the parking lot. The parking lot conditions have deteriorated to a point that we need to remove and replace the asphalt. And so because of that, we're also taking the opportunity to rethink the parking lot in a few different ways.

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One of them is from a safety perspective, that parking lot is used certainly for parking, but it's also used as our pickup and drop off for parent pickup and drop off for our students. There's a substantial amount of students that are picked up and dropped off every day. And so we're looking at this parking lot renovation as a time to introduce some additional safety measures for our students when they're picked up by their parents.

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And so you'll see a drop off area, a designated drop off area that will be introduced that doesn't exist now, as well as a walkway entrance to the area where students wait to be picked up. The other thing that we're looking to do in this parking lot renovation is introduce additional parking, so there's a need for additional parking on campus each day and specifically for events.

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And so again, we have the opportunity to re redo this parking lot. Is there a way to to add some parking to it. And the answer is yes. So in addition to making the parking lot safer for pickup and drop off, this particular design, which is not a final design, but this particular design would add an additional 16 spaces to that parking lot, which is a positive gain.

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The theater parking lot is the other parking lot we would like to renovate and address. So similarly, the left pictures illustrate current conditions of the theater parking lot. And like the elementary school, the conditions have deteriorated to a point where we need to remove and replace the asphalt. And given the fact that we have to do that, we're also taking the opportunity to try to introduce some additional parking spaces.

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And through some slight modification of the current center circle that we have in that parking lot and a reconfiguration of where cars to park. We're hoping with this proposed drawing, which again, is not final, to introduce an additional 22 parking spaces in that parking lot.

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So just an overall projected or anticipated timeline for this project. The project that we're sharing with you has a referendum or a vote date of December 9th. So please come out and and cast your vote on December 9th. If the vote is favorable or positive, we would immediately move into a design phase in the project, which takes some typically between 3 and 4 months.

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For a project like this, design phases where decisions are made around things like those parking lots and what those designs are ultimately going to be. The design of the art classroom, the design of the large gymnasium, and any other design decisions that have to be made. Once that design work is completed, all of that needs to get submitted to New York State, the state education department.

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They review that we are anticipating that project or that that review period would be approximately one month, hopefully or less. Ultimately, they have to approve the project. Once they approve that project, then the project will go out to bid. That process takes about a month. Once those bids are completed, received, and approved by the Board of Ed, we would be able to start construction.

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The reason we're aligning this timeline the way that we are, is because we're hoping to capture the summer months next year to do a lot of the work. Summer is obviously an ideal time to do capital project work in a school, because there are fewer people here.

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In terms of finance. Just to summarize some of the things I've spoken to this evening, this provides a summary of that. So the project that we're proposing and sharing with you has a total cost of $5.255 million. The way that that is paid for is sort of broken up into two parts. One part is called the local share, and that's the part that's built into our budget that is supported by our tax base, our taxpayers, our community.

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That is the part that is expiring. And this proposed part of the budget would replace that expiring debt. So that $945,000 is in our budget would be replaced by this project, and therefore would not require us to ask for any additional funding from our our taxpayers. The other 82% is that part that I was sharing with you that is aided by New York State.

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That amounts to about $4.3 million. When those two numbers come together, that results in no increase to our tax levy. In other words, we're able to accomplish the work of this project, pay for this project, complete this project without asking our taxpayers for any additional support, which were very grateful that we're able to do that. The payment for the project would start in about 2027, which aligns with that.

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That other debt payment will fall off from the previous project, so please be sure to come out and vote on Tuesday, December 9th from 12 to 8 p.m. and our theater lobby. If you have any questions about the project, please feel free to call the district office and we would be happy to do our best to answer those questions for you.

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Otherwise, we look forward to seeing you on December 9th and always appreciate your support. Thank you very much for tuning in and go. Comments.