This calculating of the "two-thirds" must include bringing old facilities up to par with new standards, said Ricciuti. "When you start adding it all up, it will almost always cost more to fix building this old than build new with these standards," he said.

Both the high school and middle school were built in the early 1900s.

"You would be looking at entire mechanical system additions as well as handicap access for all of your buildings, which is costly," said Ricciuti.

Also, the program will not fund the building of sports facilities, gymnasiums or auditoriums. The program does not consider them assets to an academic education. If an auditorium is built as part of a multipurpose facility, the state will fund everything but the seating.

Schools can opt, in the master plan, to also build these facilities, but would be 100 percent responsible for all costs.

After the assessment stage of the plan, the board would then have the final say in how the building plan should go.

The plan then would move forward to collect local funding. In each area, a demographics test is run and a 10-year projection is made on the number of students that will most likely be attending schools in that area.

Using the results of these and financial tests, each district in Ohio was given a ranking, according to how much the area could contribute that, along with the state money, would go towards the project. In Brookfield, that percentage was assessed at 63 percent.

Local funding would have to be approved by voters.

Once the board has agreed on a master plan and the local funding is agreed upon, the project can commence. As of now, the Brookfield stands at number 221 of the 612 districts in Ohio. Twenty facilities can be built a year. This would put Brookfield at starting the program sometime in 2005 or later.

Districts like Sebring and Alliance have already undergone such changes through this program.

Ricciuti said the board can start the process earlier. Instead of waiting its turn at its current ranking -- nearly 120 buildings behind current projects -- Brookfield could enter a new program called the Expedited Local Partnership Program.

This allows schools to jump ahead and the board could pass a resolution now to begin the process. Then, the nearly five-year long project can be started so that when the school's turn comes for state funding, the project is already under way.

A school's free assessment would start now. The board would have to resolve to do so and the crew could assess the facilities within 30 days of contact and create a master plan within six months. The board would then have to vote on the master plan.

Once the price passed locally, work could begin using only that share of the total costs, which is 63 percent of the project money. Once the date comes when the board would receive its other 37 percent from the state, the project could be finished.

The directors spoke strongly for the early program saying that it would give time for the community to become more familiar with it.

"It is free and we might as well see what they would propose," said board member Louis Saloom. "It can't hurt," he said.

The board also felt that the costs of renovations and up-keep of the older buildings would be much greater than their percent of the new.

Ricciuti strongly recommended the process be started as soon as possible if the board was interested.