If approved, school district officials said it would generate about $24.6 million, but not increase taxes. Instead, voter passage would allow collection to start in 2027 after a current 2-mill bond issue expires the year prior, Fairborn Treasurer Kevin Philo said.
The new high school under construction on Commerce Center Boulevard — once estimated to cost $70 million — is now projected at $82 million due to inflation, officials have said.
It is scheduled to open in August 2024, according to the district.
“They’ve really tried to lock in prices on as many things as they could,” bond issue campaign co-chair Jane Doorley said of the school district.
“But who would have thought in their wildest dreams that in the last three years costs would skyrocket as much as they have?” she added.
Fairborn voters have approved two bond issues since 2016. That year, a 2.95-mill proposal was passed to replace the mid-1950s Primary and Intermediate schools with new buildings on the same sites.
Four years later, voters approved a 5.83-mill bond issue to pay for the new high school, arts center and athletics complex. Both projects received Ohio Facilities Construction Commission funding.
However, rising costs prompted the district to delay some planned improvements initially included in the 2020 tax hike — softball fields, baseball fields and tennis courts among them, district officials have said.
“When we first passed the bond issue in 2020 … as they started the construction we were well within budget,” Fairborn Superintendent Gene Lolli said.
“Here in the last year and half — when the economy went south and prices went out the roof — some materials, like steel, we were able to lock in early and some of we were not,” he added.
No cuts were made in plans for the academic wing, school district and bond issue campaign leaders said.
While bond issue proponents said Issue 6 would not raise taxes, some on social media said an extension of “an existing tax” amounts to an increase.
“They under thought and overspent,” Jeff Potter said. “Stop treating us taxpayers as fools that believe everything the school board says.”
Michael Gunther said, “It must stop. We are citizens (and) must learn to budget what little we have during inflation; the schools and cities must do the same.”
But Put Fairborn Kids First also cited inflation in a social media post promoting the proposal, stating that “this bond issue will allow us to finish our current community building projects, the right way.”
By the numbers
34 years: Life of the proposed levy
$24.6M: How much proposed bond issue would raise.
$82M: Cost of new high school construction; $12M more than first thought
About the Author
