School Board Making Progress on Draft CIP Proposal
April 27, 2006--At its planning meeting today, the Board of Education went through staff’s draft capital improvement plan line item by line item to see what changes it wants to make. Until the final vote on May 16, all decisions are subject to change. By and large, the school board approved most of staff’s proposal. Tomorrow, the board will address the year-round piece.
The board agreed with staff’s proposal to include:
*10 major renovation projects at existing schools,
*25 percent of life-cycle furniture and equipment replacement in existing schools,
*75 percent of environmental and ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) compliance in existing schools,
*Child Nutrition warehouse, and
*Assessment of existing facilities (as called for in September 2005 planning assumptions).
In addition, the board decided to include 100 percent of the request for technology replacement at existing schools (replace servers, computers, cables). Staff had originally proposed including 25 percent of the request, but that would not cover all of the infrastructure needs or any computer replacements.
Board members also directed staff to re-instate part of Cary High School’s deferred renovation and addition project as a way to add enough capacity for a ninth-grade center to open in 2008-09. (This results in a decrease in the funding needed for ninth-grade centers and an increase in the amount needed for renovations.)
Staff will present additional information tomorrow regarding the two regional bus transportation centers and design startup for existing school projects before the board makes decisions on those items.
As a side note, there was a mathematical error in the calculation of furniture and equipment cost; it should be $4.8 million as opposed to $1.3 million.