CELINA — Voters from school districts in four counties approved a 0.95 mill, 15-year property tax levy Tuesday that will allow the Tri Star Career Compact to build a new educational building.
Voters approved the levy by a nearly 3-to-1 margin, with 2,892 “yes” votes and 965 opposed. The levy would cost about $33 per year on a $100,000 home.
“The results were tremendous for us, we feel great about it actually,” Tri Star Director Tim Buschur said. “This is a testament to the people that started Tri Star 35 years ago. We will continue the good things we are doing.”
The compact offers career technical education to high schools in Celina, Coldwater, Fort Recovery, Marion Local, Minster, New Bremen, New Knoxville, St. Henry and St. Marys. Unlike some technical schools, Tri Star operates within the curriculum of the school districts, meaning Tri Star cannot normally ask for funding levies. However, state legislators recently approved language allowing Tri Star Career Compact to run a one-time levy campaign that would help fund a facility to house all Tri Star programs in one location. If approved, the site will be located near the campus of Wright State University-Lake Campus.
Currently, Tri Star classes are held in Celina, Coldwater, Montezuma and St. Marys. Tri Star students attend classes a half day and spend the rest of the day at their respective school districts. The new building will allow Tri Star to operate in one central location.
State legislators have already allocated $8.5 million for the building of the new building and another $500,000 has been set aside for equipment through the Ohio Facilities Construction Commission. Buschur said the new building would also allow the compact to expand and add as many as three new technical career paths in the near future. Buschur added that the building would be located right across from Wright State University-Lake Campus. The compact has worked out an agreement with the university to provide a seamless educational experience for students into the university, which would assist local companies and businesses.
The vote covered voters representing the school districts in Mercer and Auglaize counties, as well as a few overlapping votes in Darke and Shelby counties. The turnout was about 10 percent, which Marie Gross with the Mercer County Election Board said was “a fairly good turn out for a one-issue special election.”
Buschur was aware of some flak Tri Star caught for having a special election, but said they expected that either way.
“We did everything we could to get the word out,” Buschur said. “We wanted to have it in a special election so people could be more aware of it. If we would have had it in November, we would have heard that we were trying to sneak it by in a presidential election.”
Buschur said timing was also a factor, as businesses involved with Tri Star had actually wanted to have it on the ballot in March.
“We just didn’t have the time for that,” Buschur said. We were able to handle August.”
Current classes at Tri Star include agricultural mechanics, automotive technology, business management, career-based intervention, construction, early childhood education, engineering technology, graphic communications, interactive media, marketing education, medical preparation, precision machining, REC technician, veterinarian technician and welding. Proposed new classes would be hospitality and tourism, information technology and adult programs.
Buschur said preliminary plans call for the new building to be finished by spring 2019.
