| Palm Beach Post
Despite a statewide economy in pandemic turmoil, the Palm Beach County school district remains on track to open three new schools and thus relieve patches of intense crowding by the fall of 2023.
However, beyond those projects, some trouble looms.
As crews work through a list of $1 billion in school maintenance and repairs paid for by a county wide penny sales tax increase, district leaders have had to put on the back burner certain improvements at 16 schools as construction costs have climbed.
More: School crowding: Jupiter High to get room for another 600 students by 2021
The projects deferred over the past nine months are those deemed least essential and include replacing flooring at five schools, repaving and restriping parking lots at 10 schools; a play court at Northmore Elementary, exterior waterproofing and signage at Forest Hill Elementary, adding air conditioning to the locker rooms at Palm Beach Lakes High, replacing lockers at Lake Worth Middle and more.
About four years into the 10-year, tax-payer approved cash infusion, Chief Financial Officer Mike Burke is optimistic that by the time the sales tax increase expires, all of the projects will be done — as the district managed after the last sales tax increase in 2004.
“Our goal is to repeat that success and make good on the promises of 2016,” Burke said.
One sign of hope, he said, is sales tax revenue has not tanked in the wake of COVID business restrictions. Indeed it’s rolling in at 113% of projections, only a slight dip from the 115% pre-COVID, he said.
“What was reassuring is the last couple months have been strong, which will help us deal with some of our costs,” Burke said.
Still, district administrators say they needed to prioritize the projects beginning last April in the face of escalating construction costs.
“Prior to COVID, we had experienced a hot market with costs driven up primarily by labor shortages,” the district’s deputy chief of facilities management David Dolan said in a written response to Palm Beach Post queries. That hot market drove costs up 2% to 3%, he said.
The pandemic then created supply chain problems, with industry experts anticipating a 3% to 5% per quarter escalation in material prices, Dolan said.
“While costs have generally continued to escalate across the breadth of the construction industry, our biggest areas of current escalation are in materials such as steel/rebar and drywall. In addition, long lead time items have led to increased costs to “jump the line,” delays caused by many components’ factories being shut down during COVID,” Dolan said.
That’s when staff came up with what they are calling “Cool, Safe, Dry, Bright +5 years, said Chief Operating Officer Wanda Paul, who also responded to all questions via email.
She described the concept this way: “Cool” refers to air conditioning upgrades; “Safe” refers to (safety) violations and necessary security measures; “Dry” refers to enclosing the building envelope including roof, doors/windows, etc.; “Bright” refers to classroom lighting upgrades; “+5 Years” refers to the assurance that the condition of an existing system/component can be maintained for at least 5 years without needing replacement.
Anything that doesn’t fit this definition is being temporarily deferred but should still be addressed before the sales tax increase comes to its legal end.
“We want to see what we can do to tighten the gap,” Burke said. “We are figuring out how far the original budget will go.”
As was true under the past sales tax, the district has an independent sales tax oversight committee made up of people in the industry — not district employees — reviewing expenses and any modifications to projects.
Construction costs for new schools are also escalating, Dolan said. But those projects tap a different budget. And some cost increases were anticipated and built into the projected costs. The district also has room to borrow in order to cover unexpected shortfalls, he said.
The first to open will be a new elementary adjacent to Don Estridge High Tech Middle in Boca Raton. The spot is currently occupied by temporary classrooms for Addison Mizner Elementary, while that school is leveled and rebuilt.
By fall, Addison Mizner’s replacement will open, and construction will begin on a new permanent campus due to open in August 2022. The architects have been hired and design is almost complete on the school budgeted for $31 million, Dolan reports.
The campus will include a three-story classroom wing, a two-story administration and media wing and a one-story building for the cafeteria, art, music and custodial space.
The district intends to open both a middle school and a high school the following year in August 2023.
The high school, sometimes referred to as “OOO,” on Lyons Road just south of Lake Worth Road has been anticipated for more than a decade. For years, the state barred the construction, arguing the district couldn’t build new schools until it filled the seats available across the county.
But the county is geographically vast and crowding happens in pockets. It is particularly severe in the county’s high schools.
The state ceded the argument in 2018, clearing the path for a school to go up on property once own by a polo enthusiast and former Coca-Cola executive.
The 47 acres is largely empty with the exception of the executive’s former home. Design is underway to build a campus that includes all the standards for a gym, a cafeteria and another three-story classroom wing, The school is due to ring in at roughly $103 million, according to the capital plan updated in September.
In fact, all three new schools will host a three-story building, an element not common across the county. The final of the three is a $46 million middle school next door to Sunset Palms Elementary, in suburban Boynton Beach.
Each of these campuses has a footprint smaller than the district typically builds a new school on, and with less space horizontally, the solution to provide more space is to go vertical, Dolan said.
Forest Hill and Boca Raton high schools both got three-story buildings in earlier renovations. Hope-Centennial Elementary, Alexander Dreyfoos High and Village Academy also have three-story structures.
The capital plan maps projects through 2030, and does include elementaries in the Palm Beach Gardens region and one near The Acreage by 2027. A high school is due in the western communities by 2028. And two years later, the budget forecasts a new elementary west of Delray Beach.
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