By Marianne Sullivan, Courier Senior Staff
Writer:
The $41 million
renovation and addition project at Valley Regional High School and John
Winthrop Middle School is just months away from officially closing, a decade
after it began.
The Region 4
Building Committee, which oversaw the multi-phased, multi-year, multimillion
dollar construction project at both schools, met in late September. It did a
final accounting of the building project and made final payments, all in
preparation for the project close-out through the state Department of Education
and its Bureau of School Facilities.
Superintendent of
Schools Kim Caron explained, “Procedurally, the building committee must
determine the project to be completed and then recommend to the Board of
Education that it be accepted as complete. Those steps have been done.
“In January, it is
expected that the Region 4 board will accept the building committee’s
recommendation, accept the project as complete and dissolve the building
committee,” he continued. “All the paperwork then goes to the state, to the
Bureau of School Facilities, which will then conduct a final audit.”
Once the state’s
audit is complete, the district will receive its final reimbursement on the
project. With the reimbursement in hand, the district will bond for the
remaining costs.
The districtwide
referendum a decade ago approved renovations and additions to the two regional
schools with a bond authorization of $41.86 million. The project has come in
within budget. Reimbursement from the state is estimated to total $14.61
million, which leaves the three towns in the district with a total cost of
$27.25 million.
The district’s
business manager, Garth Sawyer, said the district bonded $10.25 million of its
costs in 2002 and another $15 million in 2004. The district expects to bond one
final time for approximately $2.5 million. The exact figure will not be known
until the state’s audit and last reimbursement determination.
Caron said the
closing out of the project and the last bond needed will have no impact on the
upcoming 2009-2010 fiscal year budgets for the town.
“We expect the last
bond issue will impact the 2010-2011 fiscal year and we will work closely with
the towns, the selectmen and the boards of finance to lessen the budget impact
in any way we can,” he said.
The superintendent
said approximately a year and a half ago school officials, building committee
members, selectmen, and town finance directors “looked at the building project
as a whole” and determined that it qualified for additional state funding.
“In a collaborative
effort, we applied for and received an additional $3 million,” he explained,
bringing the total reimbursement to approximately $14,650,000.
“This building
project has also come in on budget. This was a long project but certainly a
worthwhile one. We have exceptional educational buildings now and they were
finished within the amount authorized,” Caron added.
At its Jan. 8
meeting, the Region 4 school board is expected to accept the building committee
project as complete and dissolve the building committee. The paperwork will be
sent to the state Bureau of School Facilities and that group is expected to
complete a project audit within six months. The last state reimbursement will
follow of few months later.