Jose de Wit
SUN Staff Writer
A state agency has once more passed over the Española School District for $3.7 million in construction funding for Velarde Elementary and other projects until the District manages to pass a bond election and make sweeping changes to its maintenance department.
The state Public School Capital Outlay Council said it would consider giving the District an out-of-cycle award for the same amount later this school year, provided the District persuades voters to approve a bond measure and adheres to a strict timeline for overhauling its maintenance department.
In practical terms, the Council’s two demands likely translate into a further delay of nine months or more for renovations to Velarde Elementary and Española middle school and a new Alcalde Elementary School. A new Alcalde school has been on hold for at least six years.
“Oh boy. That’s terrible. We’ll have a terrible delay. I’m anxious to get Alcalde going, but we don’t seem to be able to get all our ducks in a row,” School Board President Joe Romero said. “In my mind, it was (kind of expected), but I was hoping I was wrong. Hopefully, when we are able to put a bond issue before the voters, it passes. One always worries.”
The Council, which doles out millions in state funding for public school construction projects at the start of each fiscal year, announced this year’s recipients July 30 in Santa Fe. The Council declined to award Velarde Elementary funding for extensive renovations last year, citing the District’s failure to pass a bond and deep-rooted problems in its maintenance department, according to Council documents. This year, the Council brought up similar objections, and said it would again decline to award construction dollars to the District — at least for now, a Council awards summary states.
The District had requested $2.3 million for extensive renovations to Velarde Elementary and another $1.4 million to demolish buildings at the old Sombrillo Elementary and to expand Española middle school to help accommodate the seventh grade class, which is moving there from its old facility on Hunter Street at the start of this school year — for a total of $3.7 million.
Funding to build a new Alcalde Elementary also hangs in limbo until the District passes a bond, Public School Facilities Authority Director Robert Gorrell said.
The District received a $4.1 million award in 2005 from the Council, which the District matched with $2.5 million left over from a 2002 bond. The project stalled after the District decided to change the future school’s location and the School Board considered whether to combine Alcalde and Velarde elementary schools. The school’s price has since ballooned from its original cost of $6.6 million to about $14 million. Since 2004, the school has been housed in a collection of portable buildings because its old facility is deteriorating.
In its explanation for rejecting the District’s applications, the Council outlined plans to keep Alcalde and Velarde elementary schools separate.
Plans for a new school in Alcalde currently call for a capacity of 400 students — enough to combine the two schools. According to the Council’s non-award explanation, an out-of-cycle funding award for Velarde would include additional funds to re-draw Alcalde Elementary plans — and cost estimates — to instead accommodate only 200 students.
The Council would commit to help fund a 200-student Alcalde Elementary, and that state funding would also become available once the District passes a bond, Gorrell said. If the District chooses to still build a 400-student school there, it would need to shoulder the additional cost on its own.
Velarde Elementary enrolled 170 students last school year and Alcalde 145 students.
In declining to fund District construction projects in previous years, the Council cited the maintenance department’s unskilled staff, its failure to document projects on state software and its lack of a preventive maintenance program, according to Council documents and a letter from Gorrell.
The School Board reluctantly approved a new District maintenance plan only days before District administrators and Board members requested Council funding in person during a June 12 meeting in Tucumcari.
The plan demoted former maintenance supervisor Charlie Trujillo, who supported Board Secretary Joann Salazar’s 2007 campaign, to his current position of custodial supervisor.
Now, the Council is asking the District to follow through with the revised, Board-approved plan according to a timeline that includes adopting a preventive maintenance plan by October and producing a plan to train maintenance staff by December, according to Council documents.
The Council’s expectation that the District pass a bond measure before receiving state funds would delay construction projects even further, likely until May 2009 or later, Superintendent David Cockerham said.
The $3.7 million the District requested would only partially fund the three projects’ $5 million overall price tag. The District would need to match the Council’s award with $1.3 million in revenue from a yet-to-be-passed bond measure.
Voters rejected a $21 million bond measure in May 2007, and the Board was reluctant to discuss another bond election until early June of this year, when Board member Andrew Chavez announced tentative plans for a September bond election. The Board voted down that idea July 9, on Chavez’s recommendation, due to a conflict with the upcoming general election in November.
While the next available date under state law for a bond election would be in early February, simultaneous to school board elections, one of the two Board members up for election next year, Vice President Floyd Archuleta, has already voiced objections to that possibility.
State law sets the next possible date for a bond election 90 days after that, in early May. That is only three months before the Council awards next year’s round of construction funding in late July 2009.
Gorrell said the state is concerned about the immediacy of the District’s construction needs, but it’s up to the District now whether it will receive the funding it needs.
“Yes, the state is concerned,” Gorrell said. “But the state’s ready to go. The burden’s on the District now to show they’re prepared to take care of their facilities, and the burden is also on the community to demonstrate its support of the District’s capital needs.”