Seven school building project estimates come in below budget

ABINGDON, Va. – There was a bright spot on a cold, dreary Monday morning in a year of gloomy budget forecasts: building costs for seven Washington County school additions and renovations came in 25 percent to 30 percent below estimates.

“We got great news,” Assistant Superintendent Tom Graves said after the county’s School Board voted unanimously in its last meeting of the year to award $4.6 million in contracts.

The seven projects include additions to all four high schools, Wallace and Glade Spring middle schools and Meadowview Elementary School.

An eighth project, an estimated $3.1 million addition to the county’s career and technical school, will likely be awarded in January, Graves said.

The projects constitute the second phase of a system-wide building plan that Graves said should meet the needs for the next 15-20 years.

The first phase, which cost $5.1 million for four additions, is complete, as well as a fifth school renovation that was paid for with money the school system had in the bank during better times.

School Board Clerk Melissa Caudill was the bearer of less-happy news Monday: she said she’d received the documents Friday detailing state budget cuts planned for the rest of this fiscal year and proposals for the coming 2010-11 fiscal year.

In the 2009-10 fiscal year, she said, the school system must absorb a $380,000 total cut in state funding. That cut includes complete elimination of its $573,000 textbook fund, which is being used to offset other cuts to the budget.

Superintendent Alan Lee said the school system is well-positioned to absorb the cuts, having saved more than $400,000 this year by not replacing employees who’ve left.

Numbers are not firm yet – and may not be for some time – on what cuts are expected next year. But, Lee said, “I think it’s going to follow the rest of the economic conditions of the state: revenues are down.”

He said the schools will try to absorb as much of the cuts as they can by simply leaving positions unfilled. Beyond that, the system will target “things as opposed to people” to further cut spending.

“With the incoming governor … it could get worse or it could get better,” board member Billy Brooks said of the state’s budget picture. “But I doubt it will get better.”

Board member Curtis Burkett, who after Monday’s meeting is officially retired from 35 years in public education, gave his thoughts. As someone who’s served in many capacities, he said the school system will likely have to look at cutting programs to alleviate the strain on a smaller work force dealing with added responsibilities.

“We’re just going to have to adapt,” he said.

At the end of the meeting, his fellow board members praised him for his work over the years as a teacher, coach, principal, administrator and school board member.
“I would like to thank Mr. Burkett for all of his service toward the county schools,” said board member Buckey Boone. “He’s been a central person for the school system for a long time.”

“He’s touched a lot of lives in his lifetime in the school system,” said Brooks.

Burkett has not been a board member who has spoken often, but when he does, he speaks at length, bringing decades of experience by someone who’s fought the same battles before.

As always, he had the rapt attention of his fellow board members when he spoke Monday.

“I’ve enjoyed it,” he told them. “We’ve had differences from time to time, but I think that makes for good progress. If everybody agrees on everything all the time, it’s hard to make improvements. ... I’ve always tried to do what I thought was right … and in the end I hope that whatever was done, whatever I did would make a positive difference for the students of Washington County.”

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