The third time might be the charm as Assistant Superintendent of Business Michael Pacella presented a reduced $51.4 million capital improvement plan to the board of education on March 19.

The project is broken up into two propositions: the base scope, costing $44.8 million, and the athletic scope, costing $6.5 million.

The base contains much-needed building maintenance and safety measures, such as secure vestibules; window, brick and roof replacements; parking lot repaving; air handling unit renovations and repairs, and more.

The athletic scope includes improvements such as a new scoreboard and a new bullpen at EJ Russell Elementary School; a new multi-use synthetic turf field and a new natural turf football field at the high school; a new natural turf athletic field with six-lane track at Circleville Middle School, and more.

“Anything that we thought was particularly important got included in the base bid and then we simply took out athletics as separate piece,” superintendent Tim Mains said. “So, I think of this as schools and athletics.”

The base scope can pass on its own, while the athletic scope can only pass if voters also approve the base scope.

This is the third version of this capital project. Voters rejected a $76 million facilities modernization plan (FMP) in December.

On March 12, Pacella presented a $63.8 FMP, which was a scaled-down version of the original. Board members said that number was too high.

If the new FMP is passed, taxpayers will not pay the full amount. State aid reduces the cost to taxpayers and the district can pull $7.5 million in capital reserves to offset costs.

The final school vote will be on May 21.