It’s the shuttered school building that will not be sold.

On Tuesday, members of city council voted down a conditional use rezoning application for the Broad Street Elementary School, effectively scuttling the $400,000 deal between Arc of Butler County and Butler School District and once again throwing the future of the building into doubt.

It’s commendable that council members appear to be seriously weighing concerns and questions — from the possible loss of the school’s playground to the Arc’s status as a tax-exempt organization — over the former school’s future. But this has become a ridiculous and ever-more-risky situation.

Butler, which Mayor Tom Donaldson says is in thrall to tax-exempt institutions that control about 40 percent of property within the city, is hardly the only municipality struggling with this issue. Statewide in 2015, tax exempt properties accounted for about $1.5 billion in untapped revenue, according to a special report issued last December by state Auditor General Eugene DePasquale.

That’s a huge number that catches the imagination. But here’s another, much smaller number, that actually has bearing on the issue at hand: $1,400.

That’s how much property tax city officials could expect to gain from the school property, were it to go back on the tax rolls. That’s a pittance — less money than the city budgeted for printing in its central office this year — and the scenario isn’t even currently on the table.

If this had been a choice between a tax-exempt nonprofit and a for-profit business that would contribute revenue to the city’s threadbare budget, that would be one thing. But that’s not the choice that was before city council on Tuesday. The choice was between Broad Street Elementary remaining a vacant building, or a well-known and respected (albeit it tax-exempt) organization moving into the facility. Council members chose the former.

Council members Corey Roche and Kenny Bonus said they were also responding to concerns voiced by some neighborhood residents, but a simple risk-reward analysis of the choices before them should have revealed that approving the rezoning of the property (and thus the Arc’s tenure there) was the only responsible way forward. The city already has more than enough vacant buildings to its name.

We urged school board members to consider the risks and rewards of keeping its closed school buildings vacant for any longer than absolutely necessary. The district chose to chart its own course, and ended up with $130,000 less than the $530,000 JM Beatty Furniture initially offered.

Now city council is playing the same game. The property remains vacant, approved for only residential use, and without an apparent suitor to put it back on the tax rolls.

It seems far more likely that the city will be spending time and money defending its decision in court, or watching the Arc (its 300 employees) leave Butler entirely than collecting that $1,400 in property taxes on the parcel.

If you want to talk about “irresponsible,” and “absurd” actions — two words Donaldson used to describe the school board’s decision to accept the Arc’s offer on the building in the first place — Tuesday’s 3-2 vote is a great place to continue the conversation.