ALBANY COUNTY — Like counties across the state, the Bethlehem Central School District is also quickly approaching a deadline.

The Albany County Sheriff’s Office is seeking to purchase the former Clarksville Elementary School building, which stopped operating as a school in 2011. The sheriff’s office began leasing the building in 2012. The lease is set to expire on July 31, and the sheriff’s office intends to purchase the building or leave the district with an empty building.

The sheriff’s office, which deemed the structure its “Public Safety and Community Resource Building,” houses its patrol and emergency medical services divisions in the building, which serves as its emergency management center. The town of New Scotland also pays to hold court sessions there.

The sheriff described his plans for the building at a March forum attended by many Clarksville residents still distressed that their neighborhood school had been closed six years before.

At a June 7 school board meeting, the district went over the proposed lease-to-purchase agreement. With an appraisal valuing the building at about $410,000, with $85,000 to adjust for avoidance of carrying costs if the building were put up for sale, pricing it at $325,000. According to the agreement, the Sheriff’s Office would pay for this with three years of monthly payments totaling $198,000 and five years of in-kind services totaling $127,000.

Once the in-kind services end, the school will pay either the Sheriff’s Office or the town of Bethlehem’s police department for patrol services. The school formerly paid the town of Bethlehem around $30,000 a year for services said Chief Business and Financial Officer Judy Kehoe. The district has paid the Sheriff’s Office around $25,000 each year for patrol services since the office moved into the building.

The deal would also mean the school would relinquish rooms used as storage space and stored supplies would be given to new teachers or donated, said district Superintendent Jody Monroe.

The district would be allowed to use one room for alternative programming, and the school’s sign, plaque, and peace pole would remain. Artwork would be photographed and displayed digitally after it is removed.

The school was built in the town of New Scotland in 1948, and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It was renovated in 2003 under a bond, which the district will continue to make payments toward until 2022.

The school has also been receiving state aid for the costs, which will decrease should the property be sold, said Kehoe. But the proceeds from the sale would balance this so there would be no net gains or losses. At the meeting, Kehoe called it a “wash.”

The building is assessed at a full market value of $1.7 million, with no taxable value due to it being owned by the school. New Scotland Supervisor Doug LaGrange said that shifting ownership to the sheriff’s office would not make the property taxable.

The appraiser, Caryn Zeh of Caryn Zeh Appraisals, LLC, used local property values and sales of similar properties, said Kehoe. The appraisal listed buildings like the former Albany High School on Western Avenue, which was sold to the State University of New York for $2 million, and the former Martin Van Buren Elementary School on Broad Street in Kinderhook, which was sold for $550,00 to become an art gallery.

Kehoe described the lease-to-purchase agreement as a fair deal, given the appraised value and the services offered by the sheriff’s office, which she described as a logical entity to sell to.

The sale to the sheriff’s office would have to be approved by the county legislature. Albany County Sheriff Craig Apple told The Enterprise he was confident it would pass the legislature. He also said the price was fair, given the amount of renovation he would need to conduct on the building.

“I understand that there are some emotions involved, as well,” he said. “But the reality is the building is not worth any more than what we’re paying for it.”

Apple said there would need to be asbestos removed, and there were antiquated features in need of repair. Contractors had given him an informal estimate of $2 million worth of repairs needed, he said.

At the board meeting, audience members voiced concerns that the asking price was too low, that the school district’s enrollment could increase again without another building to fill, and that there is currently no school in the town of New Scotland for students in the Bethlehem school district — most of New Scotland falls into the Voorheesville Central School District.

The longest bus rides from Clarksville to Bethlehem elementary schools like Eagle or Slingerlands last an hour. At the meeting, board members said new measures to reduce the rides to 45 minutes were included in the 2017-18 budget. Monroe said that the district would be adding two new bus routes, with two more drivers.

LaGrange thinks selling the building to the sheriff’s office would be the best option for the district, but only if the district has no intention to operate a school in New Scotland again.

Monroe said that, based on information and projections obtained from the Capital District Regional Planning Commission, there would be no need to open a school in New Scotland again. She said the district has had a 21-percent decrease in enrollment since 2005; the commission predicted a 6-percent decrease from kindergarten through fifth grade until 2022.

“It would take a very long time for our numbers to get back to where we were,” said Monroe. “Our kindergarten this year is our smallest class ever.”

LaGrange is an alumnus of Bethlehem Central High School and Clarksville Elementary, and his family has sold land to the district and attended its schools for decades.

“I’ve had a long, long history with Bethlehem Central and it’s been good,” he said.

But he added that he felt that students from New Scotland ended up being treated as “second-class citizens,” and Clarksville’s closure further underscored that feeling.

Monroe noted students from New Scotland end up joining all others at the middle school and high school.

“We view all the students in the school equally,” she said. “I don’t think it has to do with a special building, it has to do with what we’re offering.”

But school board members expressed concern at the June 7 meeting that there could be more information needed, and were considering trends in other areas, like enrollment in youth sports leagues.

The lease could be renewed for another five years, but Monroe and Kehoe said there was no indication the sheriff’s office is willing to renew it.

Although he described the station as an ideal location from which to cover the county, should the Bethlehem school district not take the deal, Apple said his office would relocate — buying or renting property in towns like Coeymans or Bethlehem, or as far out as the Hilltowns.

Should the building be purchased, Apple has said he would like to see additional county services be administered from the Clarksville location as a type of satellite branch.

Albany County Executive Daniel McCoy declined to comment on the issue, saying it was more or less Apple’s business.