ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, September 4, 1996 TAG: 9609040117
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DAN CASEY STAFF WRITER
NOTE: Below
A timing snafu between school renovation projects and the city's ability to finance them could mean a long delay on major school projects, including the rebuilding of Woodrow Wilson and Addison middle schools.
The school administration has told the city it needs a $2 million loan to begin the Woodrow Wilson project next summer. Without it, that project and many others slated to follow would have to be pushed back at least a year.
City Council was informed of the need for the loan in an Aug. 23 letter to Mayor David Bowers from School Board Chairwoman Marsha Ellison. But city officials say they don't know how they can come up with that much money.
Tuesday, council asked City Manager Bob Herbert to advise council on how to proceed.
"Really, we're not talking about delaying only Woodrow Wilson," said Councilman Nelson Harris, the School Board's former chairman. "Addison is next, and it delays every other renovation by a year."
Those projects include plans for air conditioning all city schools, additions that would bring at least 50 new classrooms to elementary schools, asbestos removal and computer upgrades throughout the school system.
The financing snarl would not affect renovations at Breckinridge Middle School, which already are under way.
The $7 million Woodrow Wilson project was scheduled to begin next summer and end in time for the school to reopen in the fall of 1998. Its students and teachers were to be shifted to other middle schools while renovations were under way. The Addison project was scheduled to begin in the summer of 1998.
The funding problem arose after school officials learned last spring that the city won't borrow money for the Woodrow Wilson project until January 1998 at the earliest. The school administration, which needs the $7 million by early next year, had anticipated the city would borrow the funds in January 1997 via a bond sale.
As it is, city officials won't even put the bond question on the ballot until November 1997, rather than this November as the school administration had expected. The city can't borrow any more money right now without raising taxes, which officials are reluctant to do.
A state Literary Fund loan that's expected this year would pay for $5 million of the Woodrow Wilson project. But that leaves a $2 million gap.
"I know we don't have that kind of money floating around," Vice Mayor Linda Wyatt said Friday. "We're already looking at a $1 million shortfall with the [Valley Metro] system."
City Finance Director Jim Grisso said the city would have to delay some projects of its own to come up with the $2 million, such as a planned expansion of the Roanoke Centre for Industry and Technology or a road it plans to build into the Roanoke Electric Steel plant off the Peters Creek Road extension. Both are major economic development efforts.
Or, Grisso added, the school system could delay its construction schedule.
"To find that amount of cash - I'm not saying it's not doable, but a decision's going to have to be made to delay something," Grisso said. "Whether it's going to be a city project or a school project has yet to be determined.
A third option is that the school system could find the $2 million in its own budget, Grisso said. But school Superintendent Wayne Harris said the money isn't there.
Grisso said he would be reluctant to advance the funds because he's not sure the bond sale referendum would pass. The most recent bond sale referendum in the Roanoke Valley was Roanoke County's bid this year to borrow $37.4 million, most of it for a new Cave Spring High School. It failed by a substantial margin.
"If we [advance the money] and the bond referendum fails, we've got $2 million invested in a school building and no source of funds to repay it," Grisso said.
Richard Kelley, the school administration's assistant superintendent for operations, informed teachers at Woodrow Wilson of the funding problem last week. Tuesday, Kelley said if the city doesn't come up with the $2 million by the end of the year, Woodrow Wilson and the other projects will be set back "at least a year."
Kelley said the Parent-Teacher Associations in the Raleigh Court area were informed of the potential problem in May.
But it was news to the area's civic league president, who said he hadn't heard anything about a possible delay.
"Certainly the residents of Raleigh Court want the renovation to go forward as quickly as possible. I'm sure the school system does, too" said Mike Urbanski, president of the Greater Raleigh Court Civic League. "We didn't know there was an issue" on the timing of funding, he added.
In other action, council:
* Approved a $3.9 million contract with Infilco Degremont Inc. for a new treatment system at the Water Pollution Control plant. The project is part of a $42 million sewer upgrade serving Roanoke, Roanoke County, Salem, Vinton and Botetourt County. Although it has been used with success in Europe, the two-stage biological aerated filter treatment system would be the first of its kind in the United States.
* Approved the expenditure of $50,000 to buy options on property in Roanoke County that would be used to construct two storm-water retention basins as part of the Peters Creek flood reduction project. The retention basin project is expected to cost $1.6 million and would be funded from a $4 million bond issue approved by voters in 1990.
* Approved a $15,000 expenditure for the final engineering and design for the replacement of a box culvert on Thomason Road Southeast that was damaged during flooding in Garden City in June 1995.
LENGTH: Long : 101 linesby CNB