Groton — The town group in charge of planning the future of Groton's schools agreed Thursday to ask the state for $141 million to build one new middle school and two new elementary schools.

If the state agrees, the construction projects would cost Groton taxpayers $55 million, with the state picking up about 72 percent of the total cost of $195.6 million, based on construction estimates updated this week for the School Facilities Initiative Task Force. 

Task force member Craig Koehler said there's no need to complicate it for taxpayers. "This is about as good a deal as we're going to get," he said.

State Rep. John Scott said he met last week with state Department of Administrative Services Commissioner Melody A. Currey, Groton Superintendent Michael Graner, town Manager Mark Oefinger and members of the school design committee to discuss the project.

The commissioner and state staff understood Groton's situation, including its longstanding struggle to maintain racial balance and repeated redistricting of students, Graner said.

Despite the high amount requested and the state's budget crisis, Scott said administrative services were sympathetic of the town.

"We do have a really unique story to tell. We have been chronically in trouble with the state with the racial balancing for many years," Scott said.

"The town needs to spend $55 million just to put Band-Aids on the existing buildings, and that won't solve any of our problems with the racial imbalance or consolidation or the consolidation of staffing in the two middle schools," he said. 

The state cited the district in 2014 for an imbalance at Claude Chester Elementary School, which had a minority population of 68.2 percent at the time.

Groton presented its plan to build one new middle school and convert the existing middle schools into elementary schools as the district's solution. The State Board of Education accepted it in January 2015.

The state considers a school out of balance if its percentage of minority students deviates by 25 percent or more from the district average. Groton is now just under the threshold, based on Oct. 1, 2015, enrollment data, Graner said.

Given this, it is not technically out of racial balance and no longer qualifies for 80 percent reimbursement from the state, he said.

But the state recognized that the district has been cited multiple times for imbalances over many years, has a high mobility rate due to the military, and has redistricted students, Graner said.

Both middle schools, S.B. Butler Elementary School and Northeast Academy have also been flagged in recent years for pending imbalances, defined as a minority population greater or less than 15 percentage points of the district average.

The administrative services commissioner "encouraged us to work with her staff members who were present, to basically go over the details of the architectural drawings of the three schools and put a request together," Graner said. 

Town officials were instructed to request a dollar figure greater than the 44 percent reimbursement Groton typically qualifies for, but less than 80 percent.

Once Groton submits the request, the department would either make a counter offer, or agree with the figure and create separate bonding language or fold the request into the statewide bonding package for school construction.

The task force is expected to recommend to the Town Council's Committee of the Whole on March 16 that it proceed with a referendum in November. Voters would know before the referendum, likely in late April, whether the measure is approved and how much the new schools would cost local taxpayers.

Less than a year before the state cited Groton for the imbalance at Claude Chester Elementary School, the school department moved 16 percent of its elementary school students to deal with a racial imbalance at another school, Catherine Kolnaski Magnet School.

d.straszheim@theday.com