Boone school officials take concern to Frankfort

Boone County school officials will meet with Kentucky Gov. Ernie Fletcher's chief of staff this afternoon to discuss the district's financial viability following a new county property reassessment that could cost the district up to $5.2 million in state support.

The hastily scheduled meeting in Frankfort is the latest development in the ongoing battle to get additional state funding for what has become - by far - the fastest-growing school district in the state.

This week, that battle fast-forwarded when administrators got word that a state emergency reassessment of commercial property values in the county could cost the district $5.2 million in state funding.

"We live with the reality that for every two dollars we pay, only a dollar goes back to Boone County," said state Rep. Addia Wuchner Wednesday. "For the majority of the state's districts, they put in 75 cents and get a dollar back."

After meeting with Boone school officials earlier this week, the Florence Republican arranged a meeting with Stan Cave, the governor's chief of staff, in hopes of spotlighting the problem come January's legislative budget session...

This from the Cincinnati Post.

Growth puts Boone County schools deep in hole

Boone County School Superintendent Bryan Blavatt knows Frankfort's political landscape is as treacherous as a field full of holes.

This isn't just any hole, though. Specifically, it's the one on Longbranch Road between Union and Burlington, where the district has finished excavating for a new elementary school but can do little more until more funding is secured for the project.

The district, the fastest-growing in the state, has averaged 700 new students annually for about the past decade and is bracing this August for nearly 800 more. That will bring its total enrollment, now the third largest in the state, to nearly 18,000.

Blavatt lobbied the legislature earlier this year for money from a state surplus to build new schools, but none was awarded.

Since the district is also building a fourth high school to open in 2008 and has exhausted its bonding capacity, Blavatt had hoped the special session that began - and abruptly ended - Thursday in Frankfort might somehow have provided a window to more funding.
That window, though, like the session itself, closed nearly as quickly as it began.

This from the Cincinnati Post.