Schools seek guarantee of capital dollars

SMITHFIELD — In a presentation before County Commissioners, an assistant school superintendent talked little about specific building and equipment needs.

Instead, David Pearce talked about the school district’s need for an annual pool of substantial dollars to replace heating and cooling systems, repair roofs, replace aging vehicles and the like.

That’s because an assessment of the district’s buildings and equipment, including vehicles, had shown $7.5 million worth of immediate needs. It showed a total of $87.8 million in needs the schools should address in the next one to two years.

“The whole point of (the assessment) was so that we could get ahead of what’s going on and try to become proactive,” said Pearce, assistant superintendent for administrative and auxiliary services.

That went a long way toward explaining the district’s request for $28 million in capital outlay for 2024-25, substantially more than County Manager Rick Hester had recommended in his proposed budget.

Of the $28 million, $11.675 million would be the first installment in that pool of annual dollars the schools hope to receive to gradually address capital needs. The guarantee of a recurring outlay of that amount would speed building-repair projects, Pearce said.

“Right now, we don’t know what we’re going to get,” he said of the amount commissioners give the schools yearly for capital projects. “When I finally know what we’re going to get, it may take me six to seven months to turn around materials or supplies.

“So if I know in advance, we can do more planning work.”

The rest of that $28 million was a one-time request to address some critical repairs, Pearce said, showing commissioners a box with a piece of drain pipe from a school.

“I would not touch this,” he cautioned commissioners. “This is what the drain pipe looks like in two of our schools. They are collapsing. They are sitting at 40-year-old schools.”

The district also needs to begin replacing its aging vehicle fleet, Pearce said. “We currently have 16 vehicles with over 150,000 miles, 10 with over 175,000, 31 with over 200,000 miles and four with over 300,000 miles,” he said.

The schools know they will have to pace themselves when it comes to buildings and vehicles, Pearce said. “We understand that you got to eat the elephant one bite at a time,” he said. “There’s nobody here asking for all the $87 million or all 40 vehicles to be replaced.

“What would be helpful though is to get on a consistent model, if we can, of what we will receive in capital each year so that we can help plan and be proactive … in preventive maintenance.”

Commissioners said school leaders were wise to embrace a gradual approach to meeting that $87 million in building and equipment needs.

“It won’t happen overnight, and it can’t be funded overnight either,” Commissioner Bill Stovall said. “It has to be funded incrementally in order to get there.”

But commissioners thanked the schools for conducting the needs assessment.

“I think probably everybody knew it was going to be ugly when we got it,” Commissioner Patrick Harris said. “But it doesn’t take the facts away that these are needs that have to be addressed at some point.”

“I don’t think anybody … was under the impression this was all going to get fixed the first year,” Harris added. “But I think in order to start down that road, we’ve got to have a map of how to get there, and I think this is our road map.

“And then we’ve got to work diligently to try to get to the end of that road.”

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