The Indian River County School District is evaluating some of its properties for potential sale as it looks to reduce costs and redirect money toward other district needs.
Superintendent Dr. David Moore said the district is cataloging facilities that are underused, including properties that are not being used as schools.
"We have two downtown properties that are not school spaces that are office facilities, so we're looking at those. Because of some of our shifts in enrollment, we have facilities that we're looking at," he said.
The district is also finding new uses for some properties that had been considered for sale. The former Osceola elementary school campus, for example, is being leased to a church, while the former Rosewood site is being used for new programming.
"Because they've been open, like Osceola campus, which was the elementary, we've now leased that out to a church for the next six months in a kind of a rolling contract, so we will not be selling that anytime soon," Moore said. "Where Rosewood was, we've created new programming there, so that was one of the sites that we were considering, but we have programming there, so that will not be something that we're looking to move."
The potential property sales come as the district downsizes its non-school staff. Moore said consolidating employees into fewer facilities can help avoid maintaining buildings that are no longer needed.
"And you're running electricity, you're running maintenance for a facility to put people that could fit into one building. It's just fiscally responsible not to maintain facilities that you don't need, especially when they don't have children in them," he said.
Money saved through the changes could be directed toward the district's capital budget, Moore said.
"That will provide additional funding on our capital side of our budget, which will provide additional upgrades for facilities," he said.
The district has already identified at least one property that has drawn interest from potential buyers, although the sale process remains in its early stages.
"The one property that we have pushed out, we've seen that there is two organizations that are interested," Moore said. "So now, in order for me to engage with them, the board will give me approval at our upcoming meeting to simply engage in negotiations. So we'll go through that process. After we identify the appropriate buyer, we'll take that item back to the board, and the board will approve the selling of that facility."