State officials say Corbin East School must be sold

A plan to donate Corbin East School and some surrounding property to the Corbin Housing Authority for a low-income housing project hit a brick wall last week as state officials said the idea is illegal.

After a brief secret session to discuss the issue last Thursday, members of the Corbin Board of Education voted unanimously to declare the abandoned school and surrounding land as surplus property. They also voted to authorize Superintendent Ed McNeel to have a survey performed of the property and an updated appraisal to determine its value.

The decision came on the heels of a determination by the Kentucky Department of Education that simply giving the building, or any of the land near the building owned by the school district, to anyone is against the law. Board members have spent the better part of the year trying to determine what would happen with the school. At a meeting in May, some community members passionately argued for plans to preserve the building and talked of making it a museum or community center.

Last month, Housing Authority of Corbin Executive Director Dora Mobley asked the board to give the structure and some of the land to the Housing Authority. She said a non-profit organization tied to the Authority would then apply for grant funds to totally gut the old school and turn it into affordable housing. Under the plan, the board would have been allowed to keep two valuable parcels to sell.

Board members seemed generally favorable to the idea, but were advised to find out from the KDE if the plan would be allowed.

Board Attorney Bob Hammons informed board members KDE officials had ruled the property must be sold at a "fair market value."

The school and property encompasses 2.6 acres fronting Master Street. The facility itself is 25,000 square feet and two stories high. The building required major renovation in the 1940s after it was damaged by fire. It was renovated again in the 1980s.

East School was closed from 1990-1993 and reopened as an alternative school in 1994 and was used for that purpose through 2008. It is currently closed and McNeel said it has no utility service at this time.

The building was given a rating of 5 by architects who evaluated it using the Kentucky Department of Education’s facility standards criteria. This is the worst ranking that can be given to an educational facility in Kentucky.

McNeel said he just received the information from KDE a few hours before Thursday’s meeting.

"It took a long time for them to get back to us about this. To be truthful, I think they forgot us," McNeel said. "I sent them an email to remind them of what we wanted to know. I knew the board would want to have some information by the time of the meeting to discuss on this."

A most recent appraisal of the building and property valued it at $892,000. McNeel said its value has almost certainly diminished in the last two years and expect a new appraisal will value it lower.

No plans for sale of the property have yet been finalized.

In other business, the board:

¥ Approved the sale of about $10.5 million worth of Build America Bonds to fund a massive renovation and addition project at Corbin High School.

The bonds were scheduled to be sold Tuesday. Greg Phillips, a representative with Hilliard-Lyons, the company handling the sale for the school district, said funds from the sale would be in the bank by Dec. 9.

Officials say the Build America Bonds, made available under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which Congress passed in February, differ from normal tax-free bonds in that even though they are taxable, the government will subsidize up to 35 percent of taxes owed on interest. Phillips said he expects the bond rate will be at or below four percent. Tradition bonds would have had about a 4.5 percent interest.