M.R. Reiter closure will save Morrisville thousands
Posted: Tuesday, May 31, 2011 1:25 pm | Updated: 1:15 am, Wed Jun 1, 2011.
By GEMA MARIA DUARTE
Staff Writer
| 0 commentsThe closure of M.R. Reiter will save the Morrisville School District tens of thousands of dollars. In the 2009-10 school year alone, the savings involving the closed school was $48,592, according to Paul DeAngelo, the district’s business administrator.
The majority of the school board voted last week to permanently close the building, which has been vacant since a furnace explosion in December 2008. The decision was made because enrollment has declined and the district has been able to conduct educational programs with the same efficiency as it did when Reiter was open,officials said. And, in the future, a need for the building doesn’t seem likely.
District officials made the permanent closure decision after receiving a final insurance claim payment involving the blast about three months ago, DeAngelo said. After the blast, the district had been making a year-to-year decision on whether to close M.R. Reiter for each school year because the insurance claim had been ongoing. The district ended up collecing about $1.4 million in insurance from the blast, DeAngelo said. That was far less than it would have cost to reopen the elementary school.
A survey of the district’s buildings was conducted, and reopening M.R. Reiter would have cost “a little over $4 million,” school board director Marlys Mihok said last week. That estimate doesn’t include the cost to test air quality, DeAngelo added.
Now, district officials have to figure out whether to buy module classrooms or continue renting the ones that have been used since the explosion closed the school.
Reiter was one of two Morrisville elementary schools until the furnace blast. Board members moved grades four and five into the same building as middle and high school students after the explosion. Students in lower grades were sent to Grandview Elementary.
That arrangement will continue. And the administration and school directors will need to decide what to do with the Reiter property.
The lone vote against closing the elementary school came from school director Gloria Heater. The newspaper was unsuccessful in reaching Heater for comment Tuesday.
8 comments:
If this is our fortune, can I ask for a recount? We waited all this time to find a savings of 0.3% of the 2009-10 budget?
What a dog and pony show this has been. Stay on Course has been evasive at every turn and now we find their promised windfall for closing this rattrap is nearly nothing. Sounds like all their promises. Nearly nothing.
The enrollment is declining because people do not want to live in Morrisville, where the education process is contentious and the education quality is average and falling.
I wish some of that savings could have gone into the PROPER renovation of the HS. We were promised renovation of the HS back in 2007 weren't we? I thought correction of the air flow problems were part of that renovation. I also thought the HS was going to get air conditioning. I could be wrong about the ac but the air flow proplems should have been corrected. At least install some fans.
The second half day this week due to excessive heat.
A student told me today that it is generally 10 degrees hotter in the building than it is outside. The only source of air is the windows. There are no fans in the rooms unless the teacher brings one in. Then the student said "I don't know why they don't just turn on the heater it blows out cold air" Out of the mouths of babes.
This whole heating/cooling issue needs to be corrected immediately.
Amazing how now, after the vote for permanent closure, 2.5 years after the furnace blew up, there's a number (a very precise one at that) for how much the closing saved from 2 years ago.
The District's maintenance and operations budget has fluctuated in the $1.5 to $1.7 million/yr range. $48,592 is nothing to sneeze at, but it's sort of in the noise of even the maintenance and operations portion on the budget.
and how long to the trailers last and how much maintenance will they need as they age
short sighted if you ask me it's always cheaper to fix something up then buy new so what happens if enrollment goes up where do we put the new students ????????????
"I thought correction of the air flow problems were part of that renovation. I also thought the HS was going to get air conditioning. I could be wrong about the ac but the air flow proplems should have been corrected."
AC was not in the contract. Correcting the air flow was not in the contract. The work done was downgraded to not include certain items. The savings guru and his followers could have set up the runs to include AC installation in the future but didn't. This means that it will be much more expensive to complete AC systems in the future because there is a large amount of work that was not done at the time of the renovations. Saved a bit today, but it will cost a bunch in tomorrow. We will never see this work done while the current school board is in place. Its a screw up on their part that they would never admit to & would never make right because it would cost big bucks to fix.
What other screw ups are lurking and will only become known after they happen?
Remember last year the the ac didn't work for some functions like an Actors Net play and a Morrisville Business event, the board refunded the money. If you think these things only affect the kids, parents, and teachers your wrong they affect the whole community and the bottom line.
Remember the old saying you get what you paid for? We didnt want to pay and it sounds like we got our moneys worth.
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