In December 2015, the Springville-Griffith community voted down a proposed capital project 81% to 19%. At that time the SGI BOE Members wisely conducted a survey of our voters to gather feedback.
One of the goals set forth for me upon entering the superintendency at SGI was to study the project as it was developed along with the feedback from the survey. What we heard overwhelmingly and repeatedly is that our voters would support a project that addresses the necessities of caring for our facilities and grounds, without any controversial “extras”.
Given that there are critical needs that must be addressed soon, like the rooftop at SES, I’m prepared to present a proposed scope of project to the SGI BOE members on Tuesday, July 5, at their regular BOE meeting. This will not be a brand new project but instead takes the project developed in December and reduces it to the necessities–those items that we need to do to take of the place.
We’ll also take a look at the financial implications of the newly proposed scope–what will it cost our taxpayers?
The BOE will be asked to give feedback on the proposed project and I will hope to have a project ready for BOE approval on Monday, August 8 with a late September vote. This timeline is to keep us moving forward so that we can benefit from a favorable bid time table.
In between the July 5 and August 8 BOE meetings, I will meet with any interested school community members. I would love to hear your feedback as we develop the project for BOE approval. If interested, please join me in the HS Library on Tuesday, July 19, 2016 at 6:00 pm. Community members may also contact me via phone, I’m at 592-3230 or email at kmoritz@springvillegi.org.
Over the next week I will be writing a post for each of our school buildings in which I illustrate what’s in the project now and what we took out. There will be a few new items too–when we consider it’s likely to be 18 months to two years from BOE adoption of a project to the start of construction, we have to plan to include everything that will need to be taken care of–otherwise items like that SES rooftop have to be repaired within the regular budget without the 79.3% reimbursement from NYS we can count on within a project. And yes, I understand that the reimbursement dollars are ALSO our tax dollars but it’s much less of a financial impact to the school district than an entire rooftop covered with local taxpayer dollars.