NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — Buhler USD 313 Superintendent Cindy Couchman said her board is trying to solve some of the space issues that they hoped to address with the bond that was rejected last spring in another way.
"Ad Astra Academies, that is just growing and exploding," Couchman said. "We've been talking about that for quite awhile. "I think we're up to eight staff members in Ad Astra. They are located up at our office and we're just sort of on top of each other. Within one office, we have four or five people sitting there. It's getting urgent. One of the things that we were considering is building a building, or is there an efficient building out there that we could remodel? The buildings that we own right now was not cost effective, really to remodel those. We did find a building that we thought would be cost effective and really a good use of our taxpayers money."
That building is the Masonic Lodge building at 1800 East 23rd.
"Is it perfect? Absolutely not," Couchman said. "Is it possible that we could remodel it and save some money? Absolutely. The board gave me the authority to negotiate the purchase of that building. We're in the process of that. We have submitted a bid to the realtor that is selling that. That organization will meet, I think it's Tuesday, August 8th, to consider the offer. Hopefully, they will accept it and we can get moving forward with Ad Astra."
Ad Astra is indirectly contributing to how the district will pay for it already.
"Our state aid now went up to 48% state aid in our capital outlay," Couchman said. "That's very helpful for our district. Part of that is an unintended benefit from our Ad Astra Academies, because when our enrollment goes up, our valuation per student goes down. That's how we get ranked in the state and that's how our state aid is calculated."
The reason that happens is that virtual students don't bring the property valuation from where they live with them when they reside out of district.
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