BY CHRISTINE GRIMALDI
Staff Writer

MONROE - The Township Council and Board of Education may share the construction costs of future facilities and negotiate shared usage in an effort to save taxpayers money.

Select members from both entities will examine such plans as part of a Shared Services Study Committee, according to Mayor Richard Pucci, who discussed those plans in a recent letter to the school board.

"As the school facility construction needs are being addressed in the coming years, I believe we should examine any shared services opportunities regarding athletic fields and facilities, and fine and performing arts facilities," Pucci said.

A new elementary school and new high school have both been approved for construction, though the proposed location of the new high school in Thompson Park is now the subject of litigation.

But Pucci is looking ahead at township services as a whole.

"If we are able to share construction costs and negotiate facility use agreements, in the long run this should save our taxpayers money. It is worthy of studying this idea further," he wrote.

Board of Education President Kathy Kolupanowich read the letter aloud at the board's June 28 meeting and told the Sentinel that board members think the committee is an "excellent idea."

The proposal derived from state-level pressures to share and consolidate services between county and local governments, and boards of education, Pucci said.

Township Business Administrator Wayne Hamilton paralleled the proposal to a shared services agreement between the township and Fire District 3, in which the entities shared construction costs for a township EMS/firehouse facility on Centre Drive.

"It didn't make sense for the fire district and EMS to build two separate buildings, because essentially if we partner together we're saving the taxpayers money," he said.

The fire district received approval for a certain amount of money from township voters, Hamilton said, and the township then supplied a share of the funding through a bond ordinance, based on the share of the building to be used by township EMS.

The township and Board of Education would likewise divide costs based on usage, with the board accordingly funding a larger share, Hamilton said.

"But again, we would provide municipal dollars upon execution of a use agreement for some of those facilities during nonschool hours," Hamilton said.

In reference to primary and secondary cost-sharing portions, Kolupanowich said that has yet to be discussed.

"We haven't met as a committee yet, so that will be decided [then] what we're going to do, how we're going to do it, and who is going to do it," she said.

Potential time conflicts will also be worked out by the committee, Kolupanowich noted. Students would likely have priority in using school facilities such as school athletic fields, with the recreation department scheduling practices and games in turn, she said. She gave the example of the Richard P. Marasco Center for the Performing Arts, built by the Board of Education at the high school, where community groups schedule their events around those of the schools and parent-teacher groups.

The council is expected to be represented on the committee by Gerald Tamburro and Joanne Connolly, along with Hamilton, Township Engineer Ernie Feist and Assistant Township Attorney Peg Schaffer, according to Pucci.

The committee will also include two Board of Education members, Superintendent of Schools Ralph Ferrie, School Business Administrator Wayne Holliday, and School Director of Facilities Jerry Tague.

Kolupanowich said that she and Joseph Homoki, chairman of the board's Facilities Committee, are slated to serve as board representatives.

"This committee is a great collaboration and it shows what a good relationship that the Board of Education and the township have," she said.