One has to wonder what is the driving force behind the Warren County School District wanting to close a school and shift other students. Well, like many things in life, the answer to this is money. The district has made the claim that it is in a bad financial situation.

How did the district get here? When looking at this, it is hard to believe that an entity with a $91 million budget would have this issue, but when looking deeper, it is easy to see how this happened. How bad is this situation? Why Youngsville and not Eisenhower?

The district at one point stated it will go broke trying to have this many high schools but has since backed off of this exact claim. The district is now claiming that with the $1 million in savings by closing Youngsville, it will be able to put itself in a stable financial situation in 10 years.

Will the district actually see this savings? Considering that all of the past school closings have still left them in this situation and there is no historical evidence of any savings from them, it is highly unlikely that this will do anything for them.

Even if there is any savings from this move, it will not be as high as claimed. The district is not considering all of the additional transportation costs that will not be reimbursed by the state eating into this savings.

What are the district’s answers to the rising health care costs that will potentially eat up this savings? The Financial Director talked about how $80,000 in weight loss medication has already been spent this year with the prediction of it growing to $400,000. Is this where some of the savings will end up? If budgeted for $80,000 then the $320,000 would go against the $1 million savings bringing it down to $680,000.

Over the years, when looking at where the money has gone, it is easy to see that some of the expenses are questionable at best with what the money was spent on. Was it really necessary to buy a fleet of trucks for the maintenance department? Could this have been split over several years? Couldn’t the district find a different way to save $1 million by cutting costs out of other areas instead of affecting every student and parent in the district? Many community members believe this is true and what needs to be done instead of closing schools first.

So why is the district targeting Youngsville instead of Eisenhower? The answer to this according to the district is because of the QZAB Bonds that were taken out against Eisenhower to perform renovations.

They are claiming that if the building drops below 51% utilization for educational purposes, the district will be hit with a penalty. Several community members have questioned the district on what if any penalty would actually come about with closing Eisenhower instead of Youngsville because of the QZAB bonds. This question has been asked several times and it is yet another question that has gone without a true and valid answer. This was only answered with, well, this could happen or that could happen.

There has been no evidence or proof found of what is actually going to happen, such as a penalty that would have to be paid. One consideration is sometimes it is better to take a penalty than suffer an even worse outcome. Think about cutting off a limb due to infection that could spread, and cause bigger issues leading to death. Now this is an extreme comparison, but it is being made to get a point across.

According to the district, there would be about $737,000 outstanding against Sheffield due on July 1. So this is a loss that the district is willing to take? Or is the plan to refund this money? If that is case, why can’t the same be done with $9 million that is against Eisenhower? Those questions have also been asked of the district with no answer this far along in the closing of schools discussions.

Another reason the district is looking at Youngsville instead of Eisenhower is the claim that it is in need of $25 million in renovations at Youngsville. The district claims the money that it will have to borrow for this would make the situation worse.

What they aren’t talking about is what is needed at the other schools. Wouldn’t these expenses cause a hardship as well? Only five years ago, the district spent just about $25 million on renovations at Warren Area High School. Did this expense lead to the financial problems now or has this been going on longer? As pointed out in a prior commentary, Youngsville was passed over twice by the district for renovations, so this school can’t be as bad as the district is making it out to be.

One has to wonder if certain decisions would have been made differently when it comes to the budget, would this situation have been avoided?

Why does one of the smaller districts in the state need a budget of $91 million when bigger school districts have budgets that are roughly $30 million less? How much does Youngsville really need right away?

So the district is worried by the loss due to a penalty that might come out of the bonds against Eisenhower if it closed instead of Youngsville. Are there any other losses of revenue that might come out of closing Youngsville as they want to?

Hal Dunkle is a Pittsfield resident.