Dear Members of the Onondaga Central School Community,

We had a wonderful start to the 2009/2010 school year and anticipate many exciting new developments throughout the year.

Our Wheeler Library renovation and our "Literacy Garden" projects have been completed and are being used daily by the students and staff of the Wheeler School. As you know, we have begun replacing small sections of failing roof system at the Rockwell School through a series of grants from which we will receive 87% reimbursement aid on each of these projects from the New York State Education Department. Although these grants have helped us ‘begin’ the replacement process, they have not and cannot address the sheer volume of roofing replacement, district wide.

We have been busy studying, evaluating and restructuring our district wide Strategic Plan. Our focus on these interdependent strategic goals will insure that we continue our march toward excellence. One of the numerous objectives that we will be focusing on is the proposed 2010/2012 Capital Improvement Project. This proposed project will be directed at health and safety infrastructure improvements for students, staff and community members as well as improving energy efficiency by reducing utility usage and cost while maintaining a cost ceiling on the project that will not increase our school taxes.

With the focus of the proposed project on health and safety infrastructure improvements and reducing our district wide utility bills, we will be prioritizing the following replacement and improvement items. We have over 101,000 square feet of roofing that is well beyond its anticipated life span and is in need of replacement, the boiler heating systems in all of our buildings are also beyond their anticipated life span, constantly under repair and have become very costly to maintain and still are extremely inefficient and very costly to run.

We have over 60 classrooms that contain asbestos-based flooring that needs to be replaced. Although they are currently safe for occupancy, they will soon not be. A number of years ago, the district addressed this very same issue in the Wheeler School and successfully replaced all flooring material. It is now time to replace all remaining flooring in Rockwell and the Jr/Sr High School classrooms to insure that we have a safe instructional environment for our students, staff members and community members.

This proposed project will also address the need to update the lighting and classroom heating systems throughout all three schools, the Bus Garage and the Technology Building. The updating will reduce our school district’s utility usage and consequently, our utility expenditures.

We will also be studying the need to update three of the Jr/Sr High School’s Science Rooms, the Guidance Office, and the Main Office facilities. The Science Rooms do not have the instructional resources necessary to address 21st century skills and best practices, while our Guidance Office and Main Office lack a student career center, conference space for students, staff, and parent communications.

We have numerous outdoor infrastructures that are failing and are becoming unsafe. It is now time to remove the crumbling sidewalks and stairways that surround two thirds of the Jr/Sr High School.

The financing goal for the proposed 2009/2010 Capital Improvement Project is to "maintain our current school tax rate" while addressing our urgent health, safety, and energy performance goal.

The proposed capital project will:

While our school district currently has a serial bond that will retire in June of 2010, the borrowing power of this bond debt service along with the voter approved usage of our proposed Capital Project fund balance will allow us to facilitate a capital project in the amount of approximately $10,000,000, without raising school taxes. The key to properly and efficiently improve our schools is to maintain our project bond cycle. This proposed projection and the limited financial scope (not to exceed current bond level payments), will insure that we do not increase our bond debt ceiling and consequently, does not increase the tax rate with the voter approval of this project.

Proposed Project Schedule:
Projected Architectural Request for Proposal	September 29, 2009
Projected Architectural selection	October 20, 2009
Projected Voter Referendum	February 9, 2010
Projected Final design complete	June 2010
Projected NYSED approval	January 2011
Projected Contractor/project award	April 2011
Projected Project completion	August 2012

In closing, I would like to thank our entire community for your continued support of the many programs and projects directed toward the creation and maintenance of our student educational resources. The approval of this proposed project will insure that our students, staff and community members have access to a safe, energy efficient and an optimum educational learning center for many years to come.

Sincerely,

Joseph A. Rotella

Superintendent of Schools