School Board member Cameron Asbell looks stern as he questions why Williston Elementary School was given a playground cover but Bronson Elementary was passed over again.

By Terry Witt- Spotlight Senior Reporter

            Bronson School Board member Cameron Asbell this week questioned in a board meeting why money was set aside to build a Williston Elementary School playground cover when his requests to do the same thing for Bronson Elementary School were ignored for 11 years.

            Asbell asked the board to adopt a priority list of construction projects that would be built in the order they appear on the list to avoid this type of situation. He said he knew nothing about the WES playground cover until he received his agenda on the Thursday before the meeting.

            The Williston Elementary School playground cover was listed on the Aug. 25 school board agenda but the backup materials for the agenda didn’t include the only bid the school board received, which was from a Williston company, and neither the company name nor the bid price were mentioned in the meeting.

            “I sat on this board for 11 years and from the day I got here Bronson Elementary has been promised a playground cover. I will be the first to say this is a needed thing in Williston. I will be the first to say this is a great idea, but for 11 years that woman back there (BES Principal Cheryl Beauchamp) has been promised one of those covers,” Asbell said. “Now we have the Williston playground cover and Bronson Elementary, it ain’t even worthy of being called out by name. For 11 years we’ve promised something. I’m the type of person if I promise something I believe in doing it. I am not saying we shouldn’t do this so don’t take it the wrong way.”

            Asbell asked several questions regarding the priority list. He asked if someone could please identify the list of priorities the school board uses to determine who comes first with a project like the playground cover. He asked how the school district “jumped over Bronson Elementary” to fund the WES playground cover.

             “Next, where’s all the money coming from all of a sudden?” Asbell said.

            Money for the WES playground cover came from the sale of Williston Middle School. The $308,000 the Levy County Schools Foundation gave the school board from the sale of the middle school campus is also being used to purchase land for spectator parking at Williston High School football games.

            Originally the school board gave Williston Middle School to the Schools Foundation to sell as a fundraiser. The school board wasn’t able to find a buyer for the property for years and the foundation was willing to take it on as a project. The foundation provides scholarships to worthy seniors. When the schools foundation sold the property, the state auditor general intervened and said the foundation couldn’t keep the money. The funds would have to go back to the school board for construction and maintenance purposes in the school district.

            School Superintendent Jeff Edison then assigned the money from the middle school sale to Williston schools. Edison had no power to spend the money but he had the power to make the recommendation. Only the school board can spend the money. Edison presented two projects to the school board for funding with middle school sales revenue. The projects were the WES playground cover and purchase of the Williston football stadium parking area from the McCoy family. The McCoy land had been used for football stadium parking for years. The purchase price was around $160,000. The playground cover cost about $119,000. WMS was sold in May or June of 2020.

            Asbell said to his knowledge, he was never told that the Williston Middle School sales revenue had been assigned to Williston schools and never heard the issue discussed at a board meeting. He was aware that the land purchase came out of funding from the middle school sale but he said he was blindsided when the WES school playground cover appeared on the agenda for the Aug. 25 meeting. Asbell voted for both projects even though he said he felt some of the money should have been used to purchase a Bronson Elementary playground cover.

            He said the Williston Elementary and Bronson Elementary playground covers were bid out in 2017 but the board felt the bid prices were too high and didn’t award the contracts.

            Legal Decisions

            School Board attorney David Delaney said Edison has authority as the superintendent to operate the school district on a day to day basis and can make recommendations to the school board on how he believes funding should be spent. He said the school board can accept, modify or completely reject his recommendations. In the case of the WES playground cover and stadium parking he said Edison had authority to recommend funding both projects with middle school sales revenue.

            Delaney was also asked if it was legal for the school board to spend all the money from the sale of the middle school property on Williston school projects, given that the middle school was built with money collected from taxpayers across the county.

            “If I thought there was something illegal about it, I definitely would have spoken up,” Delaney said.

            Etheridge Responds        

            Asbell’s comments sparked an immediate reply from School Board member Brad Etheridge. Etheridge said the Williston Woman’s Club has been raising funds for the Williston Elementary playground cover for 16 years and has set aside $6,000 to pay for fencing the facility.

            “It’s been promised three times since I’ve been on the board; that this was going to be done,” Etheridge said.

            He said Williston Elementary was built in 1993. He said the physical education teacher has been there 34 years.

            “It’s been promised since she’s been there, so if we prioritize by age and when it was done, then our priorities are right where we’re at in starting at Williston and moving forward,” he said.

            Etheridge reminded Asbell that when Williston Middle High School and Bronson Middle High School were considered for construction many years ago, Bronson Middle High School was built first.

            “So we’re in the middle of having a discussion of a project that I know has been going on, that our community has raised money for, for 16 years. So I wanted to make sure when we’re having our discussion today we are comparing apples to apples time-wise and not jumping ahead,” Etheridge said.

            History, Timing  

            The school board has received state special facilities money to build the first phase of the new Chiefland Middle High School. Construction will start this year. The Chiefland project has factored into Bronson’s misfortune when it came to the school playground cover.

            District officials knew they would need a pool of reserve money for countywide construction and maintenance activities over the next three years while CMHS is constructed. As part of the state facilities’ funding process, the Florida Department of Education will take about $2 million of the property tax money annually from the school district for the CMHS project. The district is replacing the money with funding from the sale of two schools. BHS sold for $1.5 million in 2018. WHS sold for $1.25 million in 2019.

             School District Finance Director Kim Lake said $400,000 from the sale of BHS will also go for construction of a warehouse and office facility behind the school board district offices off Marshburn Drive in Bronson. Some of the school board offices are still housed at the old BHS. Those offices will move to the new warehouse complex. The remainder of the money generated by the BHS sale is reserve funding for construction and maintenance while CMHS is being built.

            The school board made the CMHS construction project its top priority. All five board members agreed construction of the school was their highest priority. The Bronson High School sale would normally have provided ample money for the elementary school playground cover at BES, but the money was diverted to the CMHS project. Bronson lost out again.

            Williston lucked out when Williston Middle School was sold after the CMHS project was finalized.  Lake said the middle school sales revenue would have become part of the maintenance and construction reserves for the CMHS project if the school had sold earlier. Timing was everything. Etheridge reminded Asbell that the Williston Middle School sale wasn’t part of the CMHS project.

            He also noted that the Williston community has constructed all of its athletic facilities including the football and baseball fields.

            “I understand your frustration from a local community standpoint, but from Williston’s, this project (the WES playground cover) was not designed in 2017 or 2019. This goes back 16 years ago,” Etheridge said.

            “I don’t go back 16 years. I go back as far as my principal has been there at BES (17 years), but to me your very argument proves my point,” Asbell responded. “We need a priority list of projects so we know when we get a call saying you are going to do this, it’s a list to do this right now. I do not possess such a list; I have never had a discussion on such a list. I think that’s something we ought to address. That’s the way I feel about it.”

            The school board didn’t act on Asbell’s request to create a priority list but Asbell said Edison told him after the Aug. 25 meeting he would bring something back to the board.

            Beauchamp, who has requested a school playground cover for Bronson Elementary School for the 17 years she has been principal, said the only thing she wants is equal treatment.

            “I want the children of Bronson Elementary to be served equally to the rest of the students in Levy County,” she said.

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School Board of Levy County Regular Meeting August 25, 2020; Posted August 29, 2020