The reopening of Barlow Mountain School, which had been the Family Y and then the Recreation Center, was one of the Bundle projects.—Tony Loomis photo (from radio-controlled aircraft)
Classroom parties and make-up exams marked the winding down of the 2012-13 school year, but Ridgefield is still waiting to close the books on the East Ridge Middle School renovation, the last of seven major projects undertaken as part of the $90-million “school bundle” approved by voters Dec. 5, 2000.
“I’ve got to tell you, I thought it was closed out years ago,” said East Ridge Principal Marty Fiedler.
From the perspective of a building principal, it was. The last window air conditioning units — “unit ventilators,” a source of problems that dragged on after most of the project was done — were installed in 2007 and approved as functioning satisfactorily, and quietly enough for students and teachers to hear each other.
What remains is bookkeeping — accounting, audits and approvals back and forth between Ridgefield and the state education bureaucracy that will allow the town to recover the last of the reimbursement it is due on the project.
“Everything’s been submitted,” First Selectman Rudy Marconi said.
What the town ultimate receives — which hasn’t been finally determined yet — could be substantial.
“It’ll be $390,000, almost $400,000,” Mr. Marconi estimated.
The East Ridge renovation was completed for about $11 million, so the total state share is substantial.
“We get 22% reimbursement on these projects, that’s $2.2 to $2.4 million,” Mr. Marconi said.
Much of the money came back to the town years ago. Paperwork was submitted to the state and reimbursement received as the town paid off various contractors over the course of the job.
But the final reimbursement’s amount will be known — and the last payment should be forthcoming — after an audit of the town’s submission.
“The town received $147,645 as a partial payment to close out this project,” School Business Manager Paul Hendrickson said recently. “Based on our submission it is estimated that the town will receive roughly $250,000 more when the project is finally closed.”
“We’ve made the final turn,” Mr. Marconi said. “We’re in the home stretch, between now and actually seeing the money, I would say.”
Mr. Fiedler described the difference made by the town’s school construction initiative of a decade ago. When Scotts Ridge Middle School opened, the new school took 40% of the sixth to eighth grade enrollment that had been crammed into East Ridge.
“Not only do we have enough room for everybody,” Mr. Fiedler said, “but in the renovation of this building they created fabulous science labs that didn’t exist, they took that annex that had 12 moldy classrooms and renovated it as the library media center, which is a fabulous teaching space with two computer labs and another open space with a full set of classroom computers.
“They took one of the oldest buildings and spruced it up and made a very welcoming teaching and learning facility.”
Overall, the school bundle amounted to $90 million. The projects in it and their approximate costs, according to Mr. Marconi, were:
• The $42-million expansion and renovation of Ridgefield High School;
• The $16-million reopening of Barlow Mountain as elementary school, after it had been made into a YMCA and then became a town recreation center.
• $11 million for the East Ridge Middle School renovation;
• The $8-million renovation and expansion of Ridgebury School;
• The $13-million construction of the new Recreation Center; and
• Adding computer labs and expanding libraries in other elementary schools.
Shortly before the bundle vote, the town approved the $34-million construction of Scotts Ridge Middle School.
The bundle together with Scotts Ridge bring the total in bonding from that era to nearly $125 million.
Finance Board Chairman Dave Ulmer said the school construction bonding — excluding the rec center — amounted to about $110 million.
“We should be more than halfway through the repayment of this $110 million in long-term debt,” he said.
Board of Finance member Marty Heiser has long had mixed feelings about the bundle, which addressed overcrowding throughout the school system but cost a lot of money.
“I’m happy to hear that at long last we may be getting the final monies owed us by the state,” he said. “From my perspective it’s long overdue, but I understand that the wheels of government move slowly.
“Many longtime residents of the town saw taxes go up significantly as a result of the construction and expense of the bundle,” Mr. Heiser said.
“It’s somewhat frustrating to see that the increase in student population was a bit of a bulge on the graph, and now we’re faced with lowering enrollment that could result in the closing of a school.
“That said, Ridgefield has always made a priority of a world-class, top-notch education program, and that is what the money went for in the bundle.”