Community Corner

Middle School Proposal Reductions Eliminate Space, Costs

A look at the revised plan shows the elimination of several thousand square feet of space at each school, but officials said it also comes with the same quality and further reimbursement from the state.

The plan to reduce costs in the renovate-as-new proposal for the DePaolo and Kennedy middle schools will eliminate the addition of physical education space and an electronic keyboard room from each school — but could save the town additional money as a result of further state reimbursements.

Details of the revised proposal were revealed Tuesday evening during the Board of Education meeting at Hatton School, accounting for $15 million in reductions made by the Board of Finance earlier this month when the board reduced the proposed master budget from $99.8 million to $85 million.

The reduction, which was approved 5-1 on July 7 with Board of Finance member Wayne Stanforth opposed, was part of an effort to “trim fat” and present a proposal that voters would approve at referendum this fall.

“The only way to reduce project is to look hard at the construction portion of project. The proposal maintains building with air conditioning and maintains construction of larger classrooms,” said School Superintendent Joseph V. Erardi Jr.

Joseph Costa, principal of the architecture firm Fletcher Thompson, and Erardi presented the new proposal to board members, highlighting the changes which include eliminating construction in order to maintain key portions of the project and still meet the needs of the students and faculty.

Erardi told board members that although the reduction includes program area reductions, it would not reduce the school population capacities and both Kennedy and DePaolo would still be able to house between 875 and 900 students.

Costa said changes to the project would lead to a reduction in $7,150,468 at each site — a total of $14.3 million — but does not affect the quality of the schools and can be made up through contingency reductions, which were adjusted from 5 percent to 4 percent.

“This budget is going to take a lot of discipline, did not want to sacrifice quality,” Costa said. “The attempt here is not to pick cheaper materials with lower life-spans or reduce the quality. Instead we attempted to reduce the quantity.”

The most noticeable changes will be the elimination of a brand new physical education section at each school, 2,427 square feet, as well as 1,000-square-foot rooms that would have been dedicated to musical instruction for keyboards.

In addition, the plan eliminates two special education rooms and a literary specialist room at each of the schools.

“Ideally, we would have liked to have that space but we are working to find reductions in the project that will minimally affect instruction,” said DePaolo Middle School Assistant Principal Christopher Palmieri. “It’s not a space that would be utilized all day and there are other options.”

The reductions came with good news for the town as well, however. Board of Education Chairman Brian Goralski noted that with the reduction in space, the town would now be eligible to receive a higher percentage in reimbursement.

Under the $100 million proposal, the town was eligible for a 49.6 percent reimbursement from the state for costs. By reducing the size of the project, the town would now be eligible for a 52.5 percent reimbursement for construction costs.

“Originally, we talked about a town net cost of about $24,984,000 per school,” Costa said. “With the changes, that figure drops to $20,153,000.That’s a net cost of $5 million savings per school for the taxpayers.”


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