Washington County Enterprise-Leader
New School Underway
FARMINGTON HOLDS GROUNDBREAKING CEREMONY FOR HIGH SCHOOL, PHASE 2
FARMINGTON — Blue, sunny skies reflected the mood of those gathered Friday morning to celebrate a groundbreaking ceremony to kick off construction of a new $13 million Farmington High School.
Farmington will build Phase 2 of its high school campus — a 99,000- square- foot facility to house academic space, a media center, student dining area and offices. The building will have two two-story wings for classrooms and labs.
Staff hopes to be able to move into the new building in November 2017.
School officials and representatives of Hight Jackson architectural firm, Crossland Construction and Bates and Associates engineering firm wore hardhats and grabbed shovels to turn over the ceremo- nial dirt to signify the start of the project.
“This is a huge step for us,” Superintendent Bryan Law said at the ceremony. “For a community like us, a high school is an important facility for us. It’s the flagship of your school district.”
A new high school will give the community an opportunity to brag on all its schools, Law added.
Jon Purifoy, Farmington High principal, said he is excited about opportunities a new high school will provide his students.
School Board President Jeff Oxford noted that the path toward a new high school started more than 10 years ago.
“This is a great day,” Oxford said. “It’s exciting times.”
Part of the celebratory feeling among school officials is that Farmington School District will
build phase 2 without a millage increase. In fact, within three years, Farmington will have constructed phase one and phase two of a new high school campus without having to ask school patrons to approve a tax increase for either project.
Cost for phase one — the Performing Arts Center, Cardinal Arena and classroom space for the band, choir and drama programs — was about $ 13 million. Construction started in November 2014 for phase one and the first basketball game was held in the Arena in January 2015.
The Performing Arts Center opened shortly after that.
Farmington School Board accepted a bid of about $13 million for phase two from Crossland Construction. The district will use $ 7.1 million in state partnership funds and $8 million in local money to pay for the project.
Local money comes from the school’s building fund and its capital improvement projects fund. Each year, the district sets aside money in a CIP fund to save for construction projects.
Law attributes the district’s ability to build phase one and phase two without a millage increase to a vision by school officials and school board members to prepare for the future.
About 10 years ago, administrative staff, led then by former Superintendent Ron Wright, determined the district would need a new high school in the future because of projected student growth.
Even before Wright, Law said, former Superintendent Mike Gray was saving money each year in a fund for capital improvement projects.
In the mid 1990s, the school was able to set aside about $ 40,000 each year, Law said. Later that amount was increased to $100,000 per year and the last few years, the district has been able to transfer $ 300,000 annually to the CIP fund.
He attributes the district’s ability to build its CIP fund to several factors.
For one, he said the school has protected increasing revenues, instead of spending that money. Teachers and administrative staff have stayed within their budgets and watched their expenses, Law said.
Interest rates have been low and this has allowed the district to refinance bond issues, saving thousands on interest costs. In November 2013, for example, the district refinanced a 2008 bond issue, saving the school almost $1 million in interest costs.
Oxford said the district’s financial ability to build the new high school facilities is one of the things he is most proud of as a board member.
“We’ve been able to do these projects and not ask for additional help from the community,” Oxford said.
Now that phase two is underway, the district’s attention will turn to phase three, a new football stadium and track, fieldhouse and possibly an indoor football practice facility. Bids for phase two came in under the estimate and this will give the district some options when discussing phase three, Law said.
Asking voters to approve a millage increase to help pay for phase three would be a last option, Law said. First, he wants to determine local resources available for phase three. It’s possible, he noted, the school may not be able to build everything at first but would consider phasing in the project over three or four years.