Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, June 7, 1995 TAG: 9506070051
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: RICK LINDQUIST STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RADFORD LENGTH: Medium
The expansion projects are "absolutely vital to continued success for our students" and will enable Radford to keep its pupil-teacher ratio in the low 20s, he said after the meeting. Small classes have become a hallmark of the city's schools.
The school additions, improvements to the city's water treatment plant and major sewer system upgrades were among projects coming under scrutiny as council inched toward figuring out how to pay for them. In the past, council has discussed issuing bonds or other long-term debt to finance the work.
Construction begins this summer on new art and music classrooms at McHarg and Belle Heth elementary schools. But Wright told council the city also should plan to build more new classrooms by the 1996-97 school year. School officials want room for six sections for each of the lower grades, first through sixth, that average 120 pupils apiece.
The growing enrollment is already causing crowding problems. At McHarg Elementary one art class has to meet in a hallway.
After a decline during the 1980s, enrollments citywide have grown by an estimated 50 children since 1990. Wright predicts more than 1,490 pupils will enter city schools this fall, up 15 or 20 from this school year's census.
The School Board also wants to add computer labs at all four city schools, and an electronic classroom at Dalton Intermediate that would also be handy to high school students.
The total tab for the school projects - just the tip of an iceberg of building expansion and improvement proposals - would top $1 million. "This is all bricks and mortar," Wright said, pointing out that money to equip computer labs would come in part from state technology grants and other funds.
Wright also warned that the classroom construction estimates could be low. The projected costs, about $95,000 per additional classroom, do not include construction contingencies either, he said.
City Manager Robert Asbury Jr. suggested a water revenue bond issue to pay for nearly $2.1 million in recommended improvements to the water treatment plant. In 1994, a consulting firm, Hayes Seay Mattern & Mattern Inc., listed 21 water plant projects, most involving health and safety. But Councilwoman Polly Corn called engineering reports "the ideal, the epitome," and said she'd be "very hesitant to do everything in that report" all at once.
Asbury said the city could do the work in three stages over three years, paying for at least some of it out of current revenues. He also conceded other problems could arise and that regulatory changes could create a need for yet more work.
Councilman David Worrell worried that the cost could rise if council puts off the projects.
Asbury also told council a preliminary report on plans to expand the Municipal Building and Courthouse should be ready within six months. The city plans to erect a temporary office building adjacent to the Municipal Building to accommodate crowded court offices. The new facility won't be ready for some time.
"Under the best of circumstances, a minimum of two years. Under the worst, four," Asbury told council.
No cost estimate was available, but Mayor Tom Starnes said the courts project would represent "a very big chunk of change."
Asbury said recent changes in the money market have greatly shortened the time it takes to get financing to as few as 60 days. But Wright said borrowing school construction money from the state's Literary Loan Fund could mean an 18-month to two-year wait.
Council also penciled in another $1 million to do necessary sewer improvement projects.
by CNB