Council OKs $100K for consultant to plan new school

By ETHAN HARTLEY
Posted 10/24/19

By ETHAN HARTLEY The process to potentially build a new school in Warwick has quickly picked up steam, and now the city of Warwick officially has some skin in the game as well. The Warwick City Council unanimously voted Monday night to allot $100,000 to

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Council OKs $100K for consultant to plan new school

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The process to potentially build a new school in Warwick has quickly picked up steam, and now the city of Warwick officially has some skin in the game as well. The Warwick City Council unanimously voted Monday night to allot $100,000 to the school department to help pay for a consultant to examine possibilities and make necessary recommendation to satisfy the state’s requirements for such a mission.

“Sometimes you need to invest a little to get a lot,” said Ward 5 Councilman and finance committee chairman Ed Ladouceur during discussion of the issue on Monday night. “We have a significant challenge to increase our academic excellence in the city of Warwick, and I think this is a major step in doing it.”

The council’s unanimous approval to help fund the consultant will provide financial backing to a process that is already underway. The school department is already preparing an RFP for the consulting work – which would include examining all possible places a new school could be constructed and, ultimately, making recommendations of how it should be built to satisfy the Rhode Island Department of Education’s (RIDE) many requirements for school construction reimbursement.

As things currently stand, Warwick could potentially receive up to 52 percent reimbursement from the state on the construction of a new school. To achieve this, the new school would have to satisfy various incentives set by RIDE, such as increasing the functional utilization significantly over the functionality of the old building, replacing a significantly dilapidating or outdated school or addressing health and safety deficiencies present at an existing school by building a new one in its place.

“Any time you can spend one dollar and get a little over a dollar back in an asset that's a pretty good deal,” Council President Steve Merolla, who initially met with RIDE officials, school committee Chairwoman Karen Bachus and school department personnel to discuss the potential of the undertaking a few weeks ago, offered on Tuesday. He estimated a new school costing in the range of $180-190 million.

“If we get 52 percent of that back, that's a serious piece of change,” Ladouceur said on Monday. “And now that money could be used to upgrade the repairs necessary at these other buildings without hitting the tax rolls of the folks of the city of Warwick. That makes a lot of sense to me.”

Merolla was already contemplating how the construction of a new school would have a positive impact on the city – from causing excitement and enthusiasm within the community, to potentially generating revenue should new turf fields be built to accompany the new school, which he envisioned could be rented out on an annual basis to various sports leagues in the region.

“I just think it would rejuvenate the community,” he said. “It could alter the makeup of how the community is seen.”

A rush against the clock

School finance director Anthony Ferrucci said on Tuesday that the RFP for the educational consultant should have responses by the end of November, and they can officially appoint the consultant by the school committee’s meeting in December.

However, that leaves a very tight window for anything to be done in time for the 2020 election in November, when a bond would need to be approved by voters.

Normally, the process just involving the educational consultant could take anywhere from six months to the better part of a year, as they must examine all possible sites and then design complete blueprints on a new school. The school department would then have to amend the existing, $79 million bond package that they have already prepared, which includes renovation work throughout the city – including on the high schools that could potentially be slated for demolition – and then present the complete package to RIDE.

Further complicating things, RIDE’s springtime Stage II application deadline for capital bond projects is right around the corner in February which, at this point, is simply not possible to meet. There is an additional fall deadline in September, 2020 but to submit the project then would mean that the city would not get an answer from the state regarding whether or not they would reimburse the project until November, 2021.

This means that, if all else goes well – meaning the consulting work is completed, the application is submitted on time and the city and state sign off on a new, sizable bond – voters would have to vote on a bond worth potentially hundreds of millions of dollars (as it would have to include the cost of the new school and some configuration of repairs that were already originally planned at other schools throughout the district) without knowing whether or not the bond would be reimbursed by the state.

“It's going to take an extraordinary effort,” Ferrucci said. “We're pushing as fast as we can to make it happen, and if it can then we’ll make it happen but I’m trying to be a realist as possible as to what to expect.”

Ladouceur retained optimism that the plan could move forward at the pace necessary to get on the 2020 ballot, but also indicated it was worth pursuing even if that didn’t come to fruition.

“To say we may not be able to get this completed in 2020, so what? Maybe we can't get it completed in 2020,” he said. “We need to move on this, we need to say the time is here, we need to quit kicking the can down the road. We need to build a new school. We need to re-energize our citizens in the city. We have to give people a reason for wanting to stay in Warwick, to come back to Warwick - get their kids out of the charter schools and private schools and bring them back here to the city of Warwick.”

Going a completely different direction was Ward 1 Councilman Richard Corley, who suggested looking into building a state-of-the-art preschool rather than immediately assuming the city should go the route of a new high school.

“This is a different idea,” Corley said on Monday night. “Let's try to find a young person when they're young, when they're a seed, plant them in the ground and water that seed with all the love and nature and nurturing that the school department can do so that our kids can perform academically as well as athletically.”

And in the midst of his pondering, he went further.

“Or, we could go in with both feet and do both,” he said. “If you're going to dream, why not dream big? And this is something that might change the end product of the education, rather than building a brand new high school and repeating the process we've been doing for a long time that has not gotten results that the taxpayers are satisfied with… I would suggest that we build the gold-star preschool that every other city and town would like to have, and that we be the first to do it.”

Comments

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  • Justanidiot

    friscal irresponsibility. hows do we get rids of these chumps

    Thursday, October 24, 2019 Report this

  • Justanidiot

    friscal irresponsibility. hows do we get rids of these chumps

    Thursday, October 24, 2019 Report this

  • JamesBruder

    Captain and Steve? Where’s the FBI?

    Thursday, October 24, 2019 Report this

  • warwick10

    Here we go (again)!

    Thursday, October 24, 2019 Report this

  • OldButInformed

    The consultant will be paid 100 grand to tell the City Council what they want to hear; the City Of Warwick needs a new high school! This is all in order to grease the skids for Solomon’s dream of unfettered graft ! The Warwick electorate actually deserves this.

    Thursday, October 24, 2019 Report this

  • Apollo

    All this wasted money on studies, enough!!!!!!

    Friday, October 25, 2019 Report this

  • Apollo

    100 grand buys?? New rescue? couple police cars? DPW director salary for a year.

    But oh no the school dept. school dept school dept.

    Friday, October 25, 2019 Report this

  • Bob_Cushman

    But it doesn't even cover the annual pension payment for some retired firefighter and DPW employees or the cost of the free requirement healthcare.

    Friday, October 25, 2019 Report this

  • Apollo

    Lottery Winner, they did their time, they did their time.

    Friday, October 25, 2019 Report this

  • Cat2222

    Jimmy, with all due respect. Your point has been made....over and over. Move on. If you can't, you will lose all credibility.

    Friday, October 25, 2019 Report this

  • bendover

    In RI parlance, the 100K is called the "hook"...As the late Sen. Everett Dirksen used to say about Washington, "A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you are talking about real money." Far from me being called an alarmist, but let's look at the big picture as best we can, or estimate....

    A new high school.........$200M....If we are very lucky...

    Complete the sewer project....millions unknown?

    A whole water system that is pretty much obsolete, according to Director O'Rourke...$250M?

    Our 800M dollar pension and healthcare shortfall...aka, unfunded liability...

    Revenue shortfall..folks are leaving, we are 3rd most populace city and 3rd largest school system @19K per student...but realistically, add in all the bonds dedicated for schools, now what is your per student cost?

    I know I am missing items, but are you looking for the Pepto Bismol yet? This is tragic and 75% can't comprehend what this means....No plans to deal with this, call your local moving company, they are busy now...

    Friday, October 25, 2019 Report this

  • thepilgrim

    I’ve known Director O’Rourke since childhood. Went we were playing, he was handing out flyers for the Democratic Party. He spent his life brown nosing Democratic leaders in hope of one day getting his dream: a government job. And he’s the head of the water dept? He couldn’t tell you what H2O stands for.

    Sunday, October 27, 2019 Report this

  • bendover

    REALLY ROBERT? So according to ROBERT, I am supposed to believe Director O'Rourke is wrong in his assessment of the overall condition of our water system, is that about it? I don't give a damn about his politics, in that position, he could not be hidden if he didn't know something of the job...I trust his assessment...You know how I know he is correct, look at the overall infrastructure in this city and how it has been maintained...or lack of being maintained...OH, before you think I am some political apologist, I think most Democrat politicians along with most in this State are best viewed at Nardolillo's.

    Sunday, October 27, 2019 Report this

  • JohnStark

    Three questions:

    1. Can anyone name a school district that was academically floundering, and suddenly turned it around with a new building? I happen to like Ed Ladouceur, but the notion a new building containing the same students taught by the same teachers, led by the same administration is going to "...increase our academic excellence" is not supported by ANY data, empirical or anecdotal.

    2. Curiously missing from all the talk is any explanation of whether the proposed building will combine both existing high schools, and result in Warwick having one large high school. Or, will it simply replace one of the existing schools? It's a rather critical question. The fact that it hasn't been discussed openly is very, very suspicious.

    3. When was the last time the 'consultant' took the fee, did the "study", and came back with a recommendation to NOT build a new school? This just in: Consultants that take municipal money, then recommend against a new project are termed "out of business consultants".

    Finally, you don't "rush against the clock" to spend $200,000,000!

    Monday, October 28, 2019 Report this

  • perky4175

    wasting tax payers money schools have been closed because there are not enough students

    Tuesday, October 29, 2019 Report this

  • thepilgrim

    Ben Dover, I didn’t say or imply that O’Rourke was wrong. I merely stated how he obtained his long sought government job. My implication is that this is why there are so many in government who are unqualified.

    Wednesday, October 30, 2019 Report this