Baker University withdraws from proposed community center partnership

A late-breaking decision from Baker University changed the Baldwin school board’s consideration of the possible donation of land for a community center.

Baldwin City Recreation Commission Director Steve Friend informed board members Monday that based on his conversation with Baker officials earlier in the day, the university would not be a partner in the proposed community center. Baker had been assumed to be one of four key partners in the community center with the BCRC, Baldwin school district and city since the BCRC started a push for the facility in November, but Friend said the university found the proposed center would not address its needs for such athletic facilities as indoor turf fields and running tracks.

Friend’s news came as the board was set to consider which of two properties it would donate to be used for the community center. The properties were the vacant city block to the north of the 500 block of Chapel Street and the so-called Rhulen property the district owns northwest of Baldwin High School.

Friend and BCRC board member Ginny Honomichl made a request last month the district donate one of those properties, but board members wanted to take the pulse of the community before making such a decision. Although no one addressed the board Monday during time reserved for comments on the issue, board members said they did hear from a great many members of the public in the last month.

Community members were equally split on which property they preferred, but all were supportive of a community center, board members reported. There was no objection to the district donating land, they said.

Another unexpected development was a request from Baker to discuss the university’s acquisition of the vacant Chapel Street lot and the current district office and storage building on the 700 block of Chapel Street. It was agreed Superintendent Paul Dorathy and board members Kelley Bethell-Smith and Greg Kruger would meet with Baker representatives about the properties as soon as possible.

That development swung the board’s preference to the Rhulen property, which Friend said was the BCRC’s favored site from the beginning. A community center and required parking would only take about half of the 5-acre site, he said.

Friend said discussion with the city were continuing, but that Baker’s decision obviously changed the game plan.

“We’ll have to readjust the scope with Baker’s involvement to make sure we can afford it,” he said. “I’m very interested in operating this thing in the black.”

Board members noted that unlike the Chapel Street property, the Rhulen plot would have surrounding green space for programming, provide overflow parking for high school events, would be expandable and be easy for students to access after school from the adjacent high school/junior high campus.

Board members agreed to consider the BCRC’s request again at a special board meeting on March 28. Friend said a drawing of what the community center would look like on the Rhulen property would be available at the meeting.

Dorathy said the single-story wood frame building on the Rhulen property was sold for $100 with the buyer moving the house at his expense. That should happen soon, he said.

The superintendent also updated the board on school finance developments in the Kansas Legislature. The Kansas Supreme Court has told the Legislature to address discontinued state equalization payments in support of local options budget and capital outlay funding or face a July 1 court order closing schools.

Dorathy said the one school funding bill remaining alive in the Topeka was in the Senate Ways and Means Committee chaired by Sen. Ty Masterson, R-Andover. The bill would reduce the district’s block grant of general fund state aid by 1.55 percent, which would equal $100,000 for USD 348, while increasing the state funding for the district’s capital outlay fund by $120,000 and providing $60,000 in state money for the district’s local option budget. The state local option budget money would not increase dollars in the fund, but would reduce by $60,000 the amount of local property tax dollars that supports the LOB, Dorathy said.

Overall, Masterson’s plan would be a wash for the district, Dorathy said. He was unsure if the Supreme Court would be satisfied with a reduction in general fund dollars to districts as a way to attain the equalization mandate.

“They gotten themselves in quite a fix and now there is a lot of battling between the Legislature and governor,” he said. “What happens? We don’t know.”