Funds from Schultz sale to help pay for Central Junior High library

Money from the sale of the property that once served as the Cape Girardeau School District's high school will help pay for a new junior high library.

The Cape Girardeau School Board on Monday approved a resolution authorizing the use of $1.368 million in trust funds from the sale of the Louis J. Schultz School building at 101 S. Pacific St. a few years ago. The money will cover a substantial portion of the planned Cape Girardeau Central Junior High School library, projected to cost more than $2 million.

The project frees up a restricted source of revenue.

District officials for sometime have been working with legal counsel to determine the appropriate use for the money, an expenditure that would fulfill the strict covenants of the trust, said superintendent Jim Welker. The library, effectively a corridor-connected stand-alone property to be constructed on the northwest corner in front of the junior high, fits the legal parameters of the agreement.

"The original trust was drawn up such that it can only be used for something that is deemed to be permanent, like a building or a property," Welker said.

Developers purchased the property for about $1.7 million, but the trust mandated that much of the money be held in the restrictive account.

Board member Kyle McDonald asked what would happen should the district ever transfer the library.

"The reason for my question is 30 years down the line, some board is probably going to be looking at doing something else with that building or selling it," he said. "We need to make sure how much has to be held in trust."

Welker said the amount of the trust must remain permanent, meaning the $1.368 million would have to go back into a trust should the property ever change hands.

The trust money will help buy down the cost of the library project, originally to be funded exclusively through the $40 million bond issue Cape Girardeau district voters approved nearly a year ago. Welker said the district will apply the bond savings to a list of alternate projects in the districtwide renovation.

The old Schultz property had served the district for nearly a century. Built circa 1914, it stood as Cape Girardeau's first public high school until the early 1950s. It later housed the seventh-grade attendance center and the Alternative Education Center.

Now, the funding from the sale of the building will serve a critical need for the district's junior high, Welker said.

"The library is in the basement now," he said. "We needed a better space for that."

In other business, the board adopted the written curriculum for K-6 library services and the role of the library for grades 7-12; adopted the written curriculum for K-6 computer technology and the role of the library computer labs for grades seven through 12; the written curriculum for K-12 guidance and counseling; and the written curriculum for the district's gifted program.

Curriculum documents may be found at www.capetigers.com/DEPARTMENTS/CurriculumAssessment/FindCurriculum/tabid/179/Default.aspx.

mkittle@semissourian.com

388-3627

Pertinent address:

301 N. Clark Ave., Cape Girardeau MO