Bethlehem Central School District officials are moving forward with a proposed agreement to lease the shuttered Clarksville Elementary School to the Albany County Sheriff’s Office, but an agreement has yet to be adopted by Board of Education members.
Under the terms of a proposed agreement unveiled at a Dec. 21 meeting of the Board of Education, the district would collect $210,000 from the county over the life of a five-year agreement. The payments would increase by $6,000 each year, starting at $30,000 for the first year of use, or $2,500 per month.
Judith Kehoe, the district’s Chief Business and Financial Officer, gave the board a brief presentation about the proposed terms of the deal, including a stipulation that would guarantee the first three years of the contract and allow either the district or the Sheriff to terminate the agreement, with notice, in the fourth and fifth years.
“As you can imagine, it’s a pretty significant move whenever you are moving your office locations,” said Kehoe. “Because they would be consolidating three operations into a single operation, they want to make sure they have the ability to use that space for a defined period.”
Sheriff-elect Craig Apple first proposed the idea to consolidate his office’s operations in Voorheesville and Cohoes into one substation of the department at Clarksville. Apple has stated that the move must make sense monetarily and save the county money.
Kehoe told board members that the district would be responsible for very little of the operating costs at the school.
“Any of the operating costs associated with the building, any utilities (which the district says are about $80,000 per year), data lines, would all be paid for by the county,” said Kehoe. “There are some limited elements that the district would maintain control over.”
The district would maintain the heating and ventilation systems at the school, mainly to ensure that if the district opened Clarksville as a school again in the future, the systems would meet state standards for operation. District officials have maintained that opening the school again when enrollment numbers rise is a priority – a point that Kehoe stressed during the meeting. Clarksville was closed due to declining enrollment at the end of the 2010-11 school year.
Board member Laura Berman asked Kehoe if there was any way to write a clause in the contract to ensure that the district has the say over any structural changes to the building.
“It will be very restrictive so that we can ensure that it gets returned to us in the same condition,” said Kehoe.
Besides the additional revenue, the district would also save money under an agreement with the Sheriff’s Office for policing work. Last year alone, the district spent about $29,000 for security patrols at the high school at the end of the school year. Those were handled by Bethlehem Police Department. Apple has offered to conduct those patrols for the district as an in-kind service.
Members of the public were given a chance to ask Kehoe questions about the proposed agreement. Questions ranged from concerns over securing rooms with weapons and evidence to maintaining equipment such as school desks and library materials that are still in the building.
Kehoe said the district is still working many of the details of the proposal, but outgoing Superintendent Michael Tebbano said the district has taken steps to ensure that all district property is maintained.
“When the school closed, our Operations and Maintenance staff video recorded the entire facility and logged where everything was in the building,” said Tebbano. “When we return back to the status of the school, that will be a key feature for us to be able to ensure that everything is back where it is supposed to be.”
Tebbano also said that the district would like to see murals and wall hangings at the school preserved, adding that they are many ways to keep and protect some of the work that students have done in previous years.
Kehoe said the Sheriff’s Office is still interested in allowing the community to use the building as well. The school would remain an emergency shelter for nearby residents, community room space would likely be available, and the playground at the building would be maintained.
The board would still have to approve a proposed agreement, but there was no discussion of when a vote might occur. Kehoe said the Sheriff has indicated that the department could be ready to move into the building by the spring.
