THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, October 16, 1994 TAG: 9410140226
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 05 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ELIZABETH THIEL, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 72 lines
City schools are set to get $3.6 million in extra money this year.
Most comes from a pot to be paid to the city by the federal government as compensation for military children educated in Beach schools. The rest comes from savings at the new Ocean Lakes High and money left over from last year's school operating budget.
Part of the $3.6 million - $1.7 million - will be put back into a pool of funds earmarked for renovations and roofing jobs at old schools. School officials borrowed the money this summer to pay for computer equipment at Ocean Lakes High and another new school, Larkspur Middle.
The rest, a little more than $1.9 million, will be used to help fix ventilation and air circulation problems at eight city schools. That's in addition to $1 million devoted to air quality in this year's operating budget.
City Council approved the arrangement unanimously Tuesday. The School Board approved it last week.
Superintendent Sidney L. Faucette said the new money would help, but would not come close to solving schools' air quality problems entirely. School officials have provided no estimates yet as to how much that will cost.
The School Board has extended until June the contract of a consultant from Virginia Tech who is working on the problems.
Meanwhile, school officials are trying to smooth snags in other school construction projects. Renovations and additions to six city elementary schools have been delayed.
Kings Grant, Thoroughgood, Holland, Alanton, Bettie F. Williams and John B. Dey elementaries were supposed to get improvements by September of next year. But, thanks to money problems, additions and renovations to those schools will not be completed until sometime in December 1995 or January 1996.
Officials had budgeted $2.15 million for the Kings Grant and Thoroughgood projects, $2.55 million for the Holland and Alanton work and $2.44 million for the Bettie F. Williams and John B. Dey projects. Bids from area construction companies came in much higher, however - from $450,000 to $1.25 million over budget.
Anthony L. Arnold, director of facilities planning and construction, said area construction firms were swamped with federal work, so their prices were higher.
The School Board last week gave Arnold the go-ahead to put the projects out for bid again sometime between November and January, when the local construction market is more competitive and prices will be better.
Arnold originally proposed scaling back the projects slightly, and paying for new furniture and equipment out of the next two years' operating budgets instead of the capital improvement budgets, so that high costs for the six elementary school renovations wouldn't soak up money for work on other schools scheduled to be completed in 1996.
But parents, particularly from Alanton and Kings Grant elementaries, protested Arnold's proposal to scale back the projects. And School Board members were uneasy about paying for furniture out of the operating budget, which is vulnerable to cuts by City Council.
Arnold now says the district can complete the work at the six elementary schools without trimming the projects or shifting the furniture money.
Still in question, however, are additions to eight schools in 1996: First Colonial and Kellam high schools, Plaza, Independence and Kempsville middle schools and Princess Anne, Kingston and Green Run elementaries.
City Council cut a little more than $6.7 million from the capital improvements budget for those additions, Arnold said. Council will have to restore that money, he said, in order for those additions to go as planned.
KEYWORDS: VIRGINIA BEACH SCHOOL BOARD FUNDING
VIRGINIA BEACH CITY COUNCIL
by CNB