Locals Feeling Strain Operating New Schools

David Lever, executive director of the state's school construction program, expressed his concerns to the Board of Public Works, which approved $77 million that had not yet been allocated from a total of about $265 million in school construction for fiscal year 2012.

Lever outlined local difficulties as the board gave Charles County 120 days to work through local financial difficulties for a new high school, which had been scheduled to be built in 2013. Construction of St. Charles High School is being delayed a year, because the county determined it doesn't have the $10 million it would need to operate the school in its first year.

"We think this is the repercussions of the economic downturn — that it's begun in a serious way to affect the local fiscal picture, and the government simply cannot support as many projects, or as large projects, as they did in the past," Lever told the board, which is comprised of three Democrats, Gov. Martin O'Malley, Comptroller Peter Franchot and Treasurer Nancy Kopp.

Officials don't want the school to be vacant for a year until money is available to pay for things such as staff and heating and air conditioning. The state already has invested about $3.5 million into the project to develop the area where the school will be built.

Charles County Commission President Candice Quinn Kelly said the county is committed to building the school, which she said will be a showcase facility.

"We met yesterday, restructuring some of our debt. We understand that tax increases are probably in our future," Kelly said. "We're working through our budget right now, and we are comfortable as a team that we're taking the steps now to make sure that we're ready to go with this in a very meaningful and positive way, opening it in 2014."

Lever said he expects tough times in other jurisdictions, as well. He said difficulties such as the ones experienced in Charles County will be reflected in a reduction in school construction requests in the fall. Lever also noted Wicomico County has asked to rescind $5.2 million that the board approved for a new middle school, although the county expects to ask again next year for the money. It's unusual for a jurisdiction to come back to the board to ask for funding approval to be rescinded.

"Usually, they find a way," Lever said in an interview. "They struggle forward for something that has been approved, because obviously there's a certain amount of prestige that's involved in this. It's a very, very big thing to rescind a project that's been approved by the Board of Public Works."

The state's allocation of record school construction funding has been a point of pride for O'Malley and the General Assembly during the recession. Still, Lever noted that there has been a four-year trend in diminishing requests for projects, due to the cash-strapped condition of local governments.

"We think it's going to be even more severe next year and, unfortunately, what this means is that very much needed projects are going to be deferred with the consequence that the buildings themselves may deteriorate, that educational enhancements that are needed are not going to be done that really are needed to implement the educational programs," Lever told the board. "We simply can't achieve, I think as a state, everything we'd like to achieve right now."

Franchot, in an interview after the meeting, described Lever's testimony as "a big, red blinking light" of a warning.

"It's not just Charles County and Wicomico which were on the agenda today," Franchot said. "Every jurisdiction is going to take it, have some version of this dilemma."

Franchot recommended that state officials revisit guidelines used to decide school construction needs, noting that St. Charles High School has some particularly snazzy features, such as a swimming pool and observatory.

"Given the tough times, shouldn't we reassess the guidelines so that we're not building expensive, shiny, new schools that people can't operate because they don't have the money?" Franchot said. "And, if that's the case, shouldn't we be looking towards value-engineering redesigns of some of these schools that are on the books, maybe less observatories and less swimming pools and less bells and whistles?"