Millerton Elementary School’s future looks uncertain now

WEBUTUCK— For many years now, the Millerton Elementary School (MES) building has remained a financial burden on the North East (Webutuck) Central School District.

According to Superintendent of Schools Ray Castellani, it takes about $50,000 to $60,000 annually to maintain the empty 24,000-square-foot building — a cost that the school district feels it can no longer sustain.

The building was erected in 1939 by the school district to serve as an elementary school. 

In December of 2014, the school district posted a notice to sell the building on its website. The district had spoken about unloading the building ever since it closed a few years earlier.

The notice on the district’s website stated it was accepting proposals to purchase the building with a minimum bid of $550,000. No proposals were ever submitted, according to Castellani, who joined Webutuck in 2014 as interim superintendent before his permanent appointment.

Ever since, the district has continued to explore the issue, often discussing it at bimonthly Board of Education (BOE) meetings.

Earlier this month, BOE member Nicki Johnson announced the Webutuck school district is continuing its efforts to sell the building. Castellani confirmed the district’s goal as well.

“We’re interviewing agents at the moment,” he said. 

MES was last occupied by elementary students in 2002. The district stopped relying on MES in 2010.

Castellani explained the decision that went into the building’s closure.

“I think it was a couple of things,” he said. “One, there was a student population reduction and what we found out was that if they combined it all to one campus, the district would save on operating expenses.”

Those expenses included transportation costs and administrative fees, among others.

Past and present

The building currently serves as additional space for the North East Community Center (NECC), headquartered on South Center Street in Millerton.

In an interview with NECC Executive Director Jenny Hansell, she estimated NECC has rented the site for roughly a dozen years.

“We started renting about one or two classrooms, and at that time, the school was still operating — they still had some staff there; they had a few programs running there at different times,” Hansell recalled. “But for quite a few years now, we’ve been the only occupants of the building and we’re renting basically two whole floors.” 

Several NECC programs operate out of MES, including its after-school program, Teen Team, Dial-A-Ride and others.

“There might be up to 100 people in that building on a busy day,” Hansell said.

Debt

The school district still owes $424,000 on the building from a 2002 capital project to make campus improvements. 

The sale of MES will help settle that debt, and offer relief to taxpayers so they won’t have to shoulder the burden.

Attempts to sell

Partial funds to pay for the cost of maintaining the building, the Webutuck superintendent said, are from rent money. He disclosed the building tenant’s current lease is for roughly $36,000 — that may increase this year.

“But even then there is work that needs to be done in that building that we’re not ready to do right now,” said Castellani.

According to Castellani, the pavement leading up to the building needs to be redone, the roof is need of repair and so is the heating and ventilation system.

“That would cost the district millions of dollars that we’re not willing to invest, added the superintendent.

In the past, the district held discussions with politicians from both the town of North East and the village of Millerton to see if they would be interested in purchasing the building for $1.

Although the idea of moving municipal operations to MES was considered by both Millerton and North East, in the final analysis neither municipality was interested in shouldering the cost of repairs, Castellani said.

Since NECC has been a long time tenant, Castellani commented, “the hope is to sell it to NECC, naturally.”

“The district would love to for the NECC to utilize that educational facility — they’re good tenants and we’re looking to work out the best possible deal that will make it work for both parties, and hopefully we can come to that conclusion.

“We cannot invest funds in renovating that building,” he added. “That will cost the district’s taxpayers a large amount of dollars.”

Considering options

“We’re considering our options whether it would be responsible for us to buy the building or not,” said Hansell. “We’ve grown a lot, but we’re still a small organization.

“We just barely make our budget every year, so to take on ownership of a big, old building would be a huge commitment. Raising the money to buy it would be one thing, raising the money to fix the roof and the boiler would be another thing, and then raising the money to maintain it every year is another thing.

“That’s a huge commitment. We don’t want to do anything that would endanger our organization, so we’re taking our time and it takes a long time,” the executive director added.

But NECC is not ready to toss out the option of potentially purchasing the building altogether. Located on Route 22 just south of the village center, it’s considered a convenient location for NECC clients.

“Many people who use our services don’t have cars,” Hansell said. “But we understand that they may need the school board to move faster than we can.”

If the building gets sold before the NECC can make it’s final decision, Hansell said, “we’ll have to deal with that.”