School Bd. Approves Five-Year Capital Plan

By Jeff White

The Newtown Board of Education conducted a special meeting before its usual workshop Tuesday night and approved the school system’s updated five-year Capital Improvement Plan (CIP). Yet as budget season rapidly approaches, school officials remain uncertain whether the plan will attract the support and funding it needs.

School officials called the CIP a “planning document designed to present facilities’ needs throughout Newtown school system.” The district’s CIP estimates $4,866,000 worth of projects for 2000-01 alone, which includes approximately $2.6 million for a new fifth- and sixth-grade school. However, Superintendent of Schools John Reed said this week that he realized it was unlikely that all these projects would be addressed, given the existing demands on the district’s financial resources.

“[The CIP] sort of operates year to year at the discretion of the council,” Dr Reed said, commenting on the difficulty in predicting how the town financing authority will receive it. The council is the body that decides which items will be placed on the town’s Capital Improvement Plan and which will not be addressed due to lack of funds.

The council has set a $93,000 minimum for any individual school improvement item as the “price for admission” to qualify for consideration to be included in the town’s CIP, Dr Reed said, a figure it arrived at by taking .15 percent of last year’s school budget.

School capital projects less than $93,000 will be incorporated into the school board’s operating budget for this year, Dr Reed explained. Improvements meeting this criteria for 2000-01 include phase one of a floor replacement at Head O’ Meadow School ($30,000), ceiling and lighting replacement at Middle Gate School ($65,000) and the renovation of lower level rooms at Hawley school ($18,000).

More significant are the projects dubbed “urgent” and “needed” that meet the cost requirements to qualify for the council’s consideration, namely revamping some athletic fields at the high school ($800,000), systemwide re-paving and repainting ($349,500), updating middle school fire codes ($200,000) and converting school board office space into middle school classrooms ($125,000).

 In total, eight projects are listed as costing more than $93,000, including the 5/6 school. It will be up to the council to decide how, if at all, they will be funded.

If town finance officials agree to fund these larger projects, they can borrow the money and spread out the debt over 20 years, or dip into their capital reserve account. If those two options are not fiscally feasible, the council may opt to add a project to the school board’s operating budget, potentially at the expense of smaller items.

Dr Reed said this week that the council has traditionally supported funding higher cost improvements, such as Middle Gate’s new roof, part of which it added to the district’s budget last year. However, if part or all of a larger project is added to the district’s operating budget, improvements such as new stage curtains at Middle Gate School ($10,000) could be pushed to the side.

The council delivered the school CIP to the finance committee this week, and will receive a report during its January 19 meeting.

School officials hope that the district’s CIP will at least serve to inform the Legislative Council of needed improvements and let them “know what’s on the table.” Dr Reed said the costly items on the CIP for 2000-01, not least of which is the 5/6 school, only foreshadow an increased budget request that “will be significantly larger than any other percent increase asked for before.”

As a preface to his upcoming budget introduction, Dr Reed commented that he hoped town officials would remain cognizant of the school district’s history of prudent spending. “The balance between our needs and what the town has provided has to be adjusted,” he said.