New York Consolidated Laws, Education Law - EDN § 412. Condemnation of schoolhouse and erection of new schoolhouse in place thereof

1. A district superintendent, upon the direction of the commissioner, may make an order condemning a school house, if he or she finds upon examination that such schoolhouse is wholly unfit for use and not worth repairing.  He or she shall deliver such order to a trustee of the district and transmit a copy thereof to the commissioner.  He or she shall also state in such order the date on which it shall take effect and the sum which in his or her opinion will be necessary to erect a school building available to the needs of the district.

2. Immediately upon the receipt of said order, the trustees of such district shall call a special meeting of the voters of said district, to consider the question of building a new schoolhouse therein.  Such meeting shall have power to determine the size of said schoolhouse, the material to be used in its erection, and to vote a tax to build the same.  But such meeting shall have no power to reduce the estimate made by the district superintendent aforesaid by more than twenty-five per centum of such estimate.

3. And where no tax for building such schoolhouse shall have been voted by such district within thirty days from the time of holding the first meeting to consider the question, it shall be the duty of the trustees of such district to contract for the building of a schoolhouse capable of accommodating the children of the district, and to levy a tax to pay for the same, which tax shall not exceed the sum estimated as necessary by the district superintendent aforesaid, and which shall not be less than such estimated sum by more than twenty-five per centum thereof.  But such estimated sum may be increased at any subsequent school meeting legally held in the district.