San Benito High School administrators had hoped to break ground on a gym and wrestling building before winter break, but the revised goal is doing it before summer after a new architect declared existing plans only 40 percent to 45 percent complete and lacking $1 million in details.
Trustees at their latest meeting discussed the gym and wrestling room project. The superintendent after the discussion also confirmed the district maintains an $11 million discretionary fund for such projects.
“We went through the plans and there were a lot of holes in them,” Joe Vela, an associate principal for Aedis Architects, told trustees at the regularly scheduled board meeting Oct. 8. “It’s probably around a million dollars for details left out the original plan.”
One item left off the plan was air conditioning, a sore topic for several teachers who broached the notion, during the public comment period of the same meeting, of lacking cool air on campus. The original design also didn’t include restrooms, a janitor closet or team rooms, Vela said.
Trustee Ray Rodriguez has been a proponent of the project, which will be funded with district funds and not the general obligation facilities bond voters approved in June. Rodriguez’s four sons went through the school’s wrestling and football programs. As he reviewed notes from a kick-off meeting between Aedis Architects and district staff about school construction projects, he expressed concern about the delayed project start date.
“One of the comments here – I mean, I could make a few – but the second from the bottom: ‘Project should break ground in 2015,’ ” said Rodriguez, as he read one of the bullet points on the paper and raised his eyebrows. ‘It should be complete in 2015.’ ”
This project is one Rodriguez has been following for more than six years, since that’s how long he has been on the board and it was in discussion before he became a trustee, he said.
“It got put off every time because something a little sexier – pardon my language – came along,” Rodriguez said. “Personally, I will not vote for another P.E.-related facility until we finish the ones the board prior to any of us approved.”
When Board President Evelyn Muro asked Roseanne Lascano, the director of finance and operations, how much district fund money had been allocated to cover the cost of the original project, Trustee Steve DeLay volunteered the number was about $2.5 million. Trustees guessed the total project cost would now be closer to $4 million.
The district has a discretionary fund of about $11 million, which could be used toward construction costs or other one-time expenses such as technology for classrooms, one-time salary bonuses or textbook upgrades, Superintendent John Perales explained in an interview with the Free Lance on Monday. Many districts save some of this money for a “rainy day fund,” though this is not required.
The total district budget is about $27 million and the district is keeping a reserve of 3 percent, the minimum required by state law, said Lascano Monday.
