Managing money

It hasn't pleased everyone - the levy passed by fewer than 100 votes out of 6,000 - but the Elida school district this week delivered welcome news. Officials want to build a new high school in what they deem a better location - probably at a lower cost.

This is the sort of vigilance public officials need to have with taxpayer money. If there's a smarter way to spend money - to spend less of it - officials must pursue it.

More than 100 people turned out Wednesday for a meeting about the school's location. The district intended to build a new high school on Sunnydale Street west of Eastown Road. Now, the district is preparing to make an offer on 54 acres between the stadium and fieldhouse on Baxter Street and the middle school facilities on Pioneer Road. The district had been interested in that land, but it hadn't been available so the district planned to build on Sunnydale. The Elida school board will decide in the next six weeks whether to obtain the land.

The location would be more central. It would keep the high school in the village. One would understand the district relying on those factors alone, but officials deserve credit for finding an additional one before proposing the change: savings.

Superintendent Don Diglia said Elida schools could sell parts of the previous site to offset the costs of land acquisition, lowering the cost of building. A thin majority of voters - 50.8 percent - in March said yes to a bond measure for the new school, the third time the district put a variation of the issue on the ballot. District officials understand voters didn't hand them a funding mandate, and they've responded by finding a way to make the new high school less costly.