School system gets $1.38 million in reallocated CIP funds for urgent infrastructure studies
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Summary
St. Mary—s County approved a $1,384,745 amendment to reallocate existing school CIP funds toward design studies and smaller repairs focused on HVAC, water systems and kitchen hoods across multiple schools.
County commissioners on July 29 approved a Board of Education request to reallocate $1,384,745 in existing capital funds to address urgent school infrastructure work, including HVAC chillers, well and lift-station projects, kitchen hood repairs and related design studies.
"We evaluated every school and every component that we could," Kim Howe of St. Mary—s County Public Schools told the commissioners, summarizing several months of condition assessments. "Based on those findings, we identified $1,384,745 in project scope studies and designs for some smaller projects that we need to do."
Howe said the work aims to protect mission-critical building systems — "HVACs, our roof, and water in and water out" — so schools can open and operate reliably. She outlined a list of targeted projects: the Benjamin Banneker Early Childhood Center lift station replacement, Hollywood Elementary well-tank replacement, Chopticon High School UV chamber/sewage upgrades, Ridge Elementary bladder-tank replacement and associated well-vault work, an Esperanza Middle School chiller, and repairs to about eight kitchen hoods.
Commissioners asked about cost-estimate precision. Howe acknowledged many line items are preliminary estimates intended to fund design work: "At this point, we are trying to get the projects established so that we can get them under contract with our design teams or our consultants," she said. She noted an exception: the Esperanza chiller estimate is more specific because of current work already underway.
Commissioner Mike Hewitt highlighted local concern about sedimentation in Lewis Creek and asked whether school runoff or past erosion remediation affected the creek. Howe said Esperanza had an erosion event previously addressed under Maryland Department of the Environment protocols and that the system is currently in compliance with stormwater requirements established at the time of construction. She added the school system would be willing to coordinate if a countywide project were proposed.
A motion to authorize the budget transfers reducing several older project accounts (PS1805, PS2601, PS2602, PS1403) and increasing the line items needed for the new studies passed by voice vote. The board directed staff to integrate the studies into the six-year CIP as final designs and costs are developed.