Update on Citizens' Facilities Advisory Committee

Billie Redmond and John Mabe, co-chairs of the Citizens' Facilities Advisory Committee (CFAC), gave an update on the committee's progress to the Board of Education and Board of County Commissioners yesterday morning.

The two boards jointly created the committee in June 2006 to evaluate Wake County's and the Wake County Public School System's building programs, with the initial focus being on school design criteria, construction management and delivery methods. Committee members have experience in corporate leadership, architecture and engineering, financial management, and public administration. The county hired DeJong & Associates, an education facility consulting firm, in partnership with Summit Consultants, a facility cost estimating firm, to serve as consultants to the committee.

During CFAC's first two meetings, they created a work plan for the next six months, got grounded in Wake County's process of building schools, and created a cost comparison template to compare WCPSS with other districts. The committee held its second meeting at Barwell Road Elementary and will hold its next meeting on September 26 at Panther Creek High, where the group will review the planning assumptions that the new building program is based on.

CFAC's first assignment for the consultants is to perform detailed data analysis on programs and construction, ranging from square footage and class ratios to requirements to materials' costs, construction and site work. The process will involve surveying school planning, educational programming, and construction costs of five schools districts across the nation and four within North Carolina.

Don Haydon, WCPSS chief facilities and operations officer, said that it is important to gather enough data to obtain an apples to apples comparison between districts. He said that in addition to gathering data to compare costs, he is looking forward to suggestions for improvement.

"I personally hope we come out with some aha's and gather some useful information that might enable us to make our schools even more efficient and cost effective."

The consultants will make site visits and interview staffs between September and November. So far, eight of the nine districts have agreed to participate in the comprehensive data analysis:

Travis County (Austin), TX
Clark County (Las Vegas), NV
Fairfax County (DC Suburb), VA
Gwinnett County (Atlanta Suburb), GA
Orange County (Orlando), FL
Forsyth, NC
Guilford, NC
Johnston, NC
Mecklenburg, NC

These districts were chosen because they are national peer counties, school systems that WCPSS uses as comparable districts, or they are N.C. counties that are often compared to Wake.

CFAC expects to have its first quarterly report in October and a final report on school district comparisons in January.

Posted by Kristin Flenniken at 09:28 AM on September 21, 2006 | Leave Feedback

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