Capital Budget '10/11: overview of schools
Here is the BOEs proposed capital budget overview:
And here is the budget for the BOEs code compliance issues:
Here's the roof replacement issues:
And here is the big part of the school budget, renovations:
I'll provide more details on each of these three parts, including turf, over the next two weeks. The Council / BOE capital budget meeting is set for Wednesday August 11.
Tim White
6 comments:
Can you explain why district wide repaving is $325,000? Just want to understand what needs repaving.
Does the council visit each school to see where and why money is being requested?
I plan to provide additional CB details over the next week or so.
Code compliance seems pretty pricey, over 3 million. Are these things which we have ignored for 20 or 30 years which present health and safety issues for our children or are they things which have just been released and made mandatory by the code writing bureaucrats of our state?
"Code compliance seems pretty pricey, over 3 million. Are these things which we have ignored for 20 or 30 years which present health and safety issues for our children or are they things which have just been released and made mandatory by the code writing bureaucrats of our state?"
The Civil Rights compliance line item at CHS is a mandate from Hartford. They performed an audit last year at the high school and found numerous "violations". Things like wheelchairs not evenly distributed in the auditorium to installing elevator access to the press box at the football field. It appears that this is an agency that is untouchable because for 6 months we've been trying to get a hold of them to listen to our response about what we believe we have to comply with vs. what isn't necessary. Nobody is listening but we're on the hook to resolve these issues.
I have a detailed spreadsheet of every single item they found, as well as our response and estimated cost to fix. Those costs add up to the line item in the capital plan.
IMO, many of these items are not necessary. Few, if any, are a result of neglect over the years. Some have already been planned and/or in the works such as installing levered door handles (as opposed to knobs) for the special needs kids. We already started the conversion but the CRA office flagged us for it anyway.
And, they can come back at any time and audit any other school in our district...as they see fit.
I remain hopeful that Vincent Mascianna will make some headway with Hartford and minimize the compliance list. But I do believe that this is a result of code writing bureaucrats more than it is about our school district being lax on some items.
Tony Perugini
BOE
Tony
This is a real"JUST SAY NO" moment for Hartford. These code ompliance guys are pounding sand.
Communities are cash starved. We're laying off teachers. What are these "regulators" thinking? The only island of refuge for local taxpayers is local leaders saying, "NO WAY, WE'RE NOT TAKING ANYMORE NONSENSE FROM HARTFORD"
Tim Slocum
"Communities are cash starved. We're laying off teachers. What are these "regulators" thinking? The only island of refuge for local taxpayers is local leaders saying, "NO WAY, WE'RE NOT TAKING ANYMORE NONSENSE FROM HARTFORD""
Tim, I agree. The school district has always accomodated our special needs/handicapped students at all our of schools. In fact, I'd say the administration has always been ahead of their needs in our buildings. But much of this list is nit-picking. You really need to hear Vincent explain the reality of what they're telling is to "fix".
We believe we're going to be short $5M in education funding starting next year when the stimulus funds, grants run out. We have serious choices to make this year and next and I don't believe an elevator is one of them.
Race To The Top, in my view, is the grim reaper for states with high quality education systems. RTTP is going to rob precious education funding dollars from wealthy states such as CT and will give the money to states with huge gaps between urban and suburban students. I don't believe any amount of money is going to solve that problem nor do I believe that taking our best teachers and putting them in an urban schools is going to turn that school around. There are other factors outside of the school walls that influence learning. But I digress...With RTTP in place we can kiss the stimulus money good-bye.
This puts an even greater burden on Hartford to come up not only with lost stimulus money for education but seeking more revenue sources to implement looming education mandates from Washington. That burden becomes our burden, as taxpayers, to either raise property taxes to offset the lost education funding and/or continue to make sacrifices in our school district. Neither are attractive propositions. I read in the Rep-Am this week that CT has the highest per-capita debt burden at $4,958.
I raise the above Tim because as you pointed out, Hartford needs to come back to reality. It cannout continue to borrow ($1B) it's way out of a hole nor can it continue to drive businesses away along with employment. The more we are "required" to spend money on elevators nobody will use the less money, if any, we have to spend on teachers, technology, textbooks and supplies not to mention other important needs of the community.
These are interesting times Tim. I hope that the November election will put some common-sense leaders back in Hartford. Heck, I'd be happy to have a State Rep that will return my calls for help on this matter.
Tony Perugini
BOE
Post a Comment