by Chris Mayhew

FORT THOMAS – Whether Moyer Elementary School will be renovated or replaced remains an open question, but the city's school district has been given assurances the state will pay the bulk of the estimated $20 million or more cost.

Fort Thomas Independent Schools will be required to use its entire bonding capacity, expected to be about $1 million, next year to help fund work at Moyer scheduled to start summer or fall of 2015, said Superintendent Gene Kirchner.

The Kentucky School Facilities Construction Commission (SFCC) has now promised to pay the difference of the estimated $20 million cost of work at Moyer, Kirchner said.

SFCC officials toured Moyer and met with Fort Thomas officials Oct. 15. In September the SFCC pledged to provide an undetermined amount of funding for Moyer.

"The clarity that we did receive was that it will be fully funded," Kirchner said.

The cost for renovation or replacement is likely going to be similar, he said.

The district's Local Planning Committee is now being asked to go back and review the existing plans to include consideration of replacing the school, Kirchner said.

"The current plan calls for it to be renovated," he said.

Architects will also be asked to provide plans for both a renovation and a replacement of Moyer for the board to consider, Kirchner said.

The existing renovation plan created in 2011 calls for a 450-student school. Regardless of renovation or replacement, the district intends to build a 550-student school, he said.

The SFCC identified 10 schools in Kentucky in need of replacement or renovation using an independent report conducted in 2011. Moyer was one of those schools in the report despite Johnson Elementary School, built in 1923, being listed as a higher need on the Fort Thomas district facility improvement plan.

Pam Brenner, a fifth-grade teacher at Moyer in her 25th year at the school, said the faculty was pleasantly surprised by the state's offer because Moyer was lower on the district's stated facility needs.

"We understand that the state bumped us up because of the four classrooms located in trailers on the back lot which have been there for five years," Brenner said. "Given all the private money our local taxpayers have contributed to other district facilities thus far, we feel blessed that the state is taking on this project at their expense. We can't wait to work and learn in a new environment."