In the wake of the fire last week at Spring Ridge Middle School, Del John Bohanan (D: 29B) has called on the county commissioners to forward fund renovations to the school. In a letter to the county commissioners dated April 29, Bohanan said, “Early indications are that a wall mounted heating and air conditioning unit may have been the cause of the fire.”
In an email to constituents, Bohanan wrote: “The renovation is overdue and has now been deferred until a completion date of 2021. This school has an HVAC system that reached its useful life in 1999 and has been described this past fall in the School Comprehensive Maintenance Plan as follows: ‘based on the current rate of repair, we expect a major failure of the HVAC or subsystem by 2018’.”
Bohanan notes that Spring Ridge is the school for the lower part of the county (his district) and also the STEM middle school for the entire county. “Spring Ridge is identical to Leonardtown Middle, which just underwent an $11.6 million renovation – and it is a year newer! This community and our STEM school shouldn’t have to wait until 2021 to get updated. Esperanza has been done and now Leonardtown – now is the time for Spring Ridge!” the delegate wrote.
Bohanan visited the school with School Superintendent Dr. Michael Martirano the day after the fire. In his letter to the commissioners he praised the volunteer fire departments for their quick respo0nse that prevented more serious damage.
I his letter to the commissioners, Bohanan wrote: “Forward funding is a method used by many fast growing jurisdictions that gets projects moving now. Charles and Calvert Counties have both employed this technique and I am willing to bring Dr. David Lever, Executive Director of Public School Construction, and other State officials together to explore how we can move ahead expeditious with this important renovation.
“State and local governments share in the cost of school construction projects. This share is based on a formula which includes components to recognize local wealth and the proportion of low-income students, enrollment growth, economically distressed counties, and the local funding effort by counties. The cost share formula is updated every three years to reflect changes in the inputs on the local level and is next scheduled to change in 2016. St. Mary’s County has gone from the State paying 75% of the cost (in 2012), to 70% this year, and by 2015 the State’s share will decline to 64%, meaning we are losing State funds by delaying projects such as this. Now is the time to act on this project and move it ahead for the reasons I have outlined. The State continues to robustly fund school construction and St. Mary’s County, as the fastest growing County for the past decade, with the 3rd fastest growing school system, should be keeping up with school needs and not ignoring warnings of a prediction that a major failure of the HVAC or sub-system could occur by 2018. Imagine the cost of doing an unscheduled replacement!
