By Eric Stock
BLOOMINGTON – Bloomington High School could soon become the latest Central Illinois school to switch to field turf for its high school football field.
Athletic Director Tony Bauman said adding field turf will open the field to much more, including soccer and phys ed without fear of tearing up the surface.
“When you are limited with space, you have to explore other options,” Bauman said. “We have a lot of rain and wind and cold days, so I think it fits and makes more sense for our district to look into it easier because of our needs and our space.”
The soccer teams play off site and could lose its fields near Central Illinois Regional Airport soon.
“I think I’d have a very difficult time convincing myself and others that if this was a football issue of making this kind of investment,” Bauman said.
The District 87 school board will consider an $8 million bond sale May 24 to pay for the new turf as well as improvements to the fine arts program.
Superintendent Barry Reilly said after the initial primary cost of the field turf the remaining costs of replacing the $300,000 turf every 10 to 12 years is nearly equal to what the district plays now in field maintenance.
“We currently do about $30,000 to $35,000 of work on that field every year and we get about 15 football games out of it,” Reilly said. “That’s really all we get.
“This is not about us trying to save money by putting a turf field in, it does not do that. But once you get through the first cycle of that, replacing that top layer is about a wash.”
The bonds would also pay for a band room addition along with remodeled rooms for orchestra and chorus at the high school.
The new field turf would be installed before the 2018 school year. Reilly added some improvements will be done this summer; including removing the maintenance shed at Locust and Colton streets and replacing it with greenspace, while replacing the chain link fence with white aluminum fencing. A new District 87 sign will be displayed at that intersection and while flagpoles along Locust Street will display purple and gold BHS pennants.
“That will be a real nice welcome to campus and really send a nice message out to the community about our values and how we really want to be a place for our community and kids,” Reilly said.
Reilly said the district plans to maintain the same tax rate.
“It’s hard for the public to reconcile we have these deficits out these and yet we can do these things,” Reilly said. “Funding board are much different than the education fund which pays for teachers and classrooms. You can’t comingle the two.”
Eric Stock can be reached at [email protected].
