City, schools outline $100M-plus capital requests; $21M state grant offsets Huntington project

School facilities and city finance officials told a joint meeting that the district's five-year capital plan seeks large investments in HVAC, roof work, school renovations and safe main entrances, and that state grants have started to offset major projects.

The school division said it received $21,000,000 from the School Construction Assistance Program toward the construction of Huntington Middle School (about 30% of the project cost), $2,100,000 for a secure entrance at Yates Elementary and $1,500,000 from the General Assembly for safety and security upgrades at Richneck Elementary.

Facilities staff reviewed the division's master facilities plan (adopted in August 2022) and the FY25'FY29 capital improvement plan. The division said its FY25 CIP request included roughly $141.9 million for a range of projects; the city reported approving $10,000,000 in local CIP funds for FY25 and providing an additional $3,100,000 in cash capital to the schools this year (including $2,000,000 for a 1-to-1 device initiative and $1,100,000 to support staff salaries and backpacks).

Capital priorities listed by presenters included HVAC and roof replacements, renovation and design work at Warwick High School and Denbigh High School, replacement of portable classrooms, safe-and-secure entrance projects across multiple schools and bus replacement. The district said it has about 90 portable classrooms at 26 sites; the division's largest single project in planning is the Denbigh renovation (design + construction estimated at $58,800,000). Other identified costs included a $5,000,000 HVAC replacement at Booker T. Washington and an approximately $16,000,000 HVAC project at Metro High School.

On transportation, the district said bus prices have risen; a March 2024 price cited by staff was about $163,000 for a 71-passenger propane bus. The division said it now operates the largest propane bus fleet in the commonwealth and that all future bus purchases will have air conditioning.

City finance staff told the joint meeting that direct local operating funding for schools has increased from about $110,000,000 in 2019 to $123,000,000, an increase of roughly $12,000,000. City staff also said the city will carry debt service for the combined Huntington project as a public building under city debt service, and reiterated that the city has fully funded each superintendent's operating budget request since 2019.

Council members raised the gap between the district's requests and available local funding and urged earlier alignment between council and school-board CIP processes. School and city staff agreed to try to coordinate timeline and committee touchpoints earlier in the budget cycle and to use the district's facilities planning committee and the Newport News Education Foundation as coordination venues.

Votes at a glance: City council voted 7-0 to allow the vice mayor to participate remotely for this meeting; no other formal votes on CIP budgets or projects were recorded in the transcript.

Ending: Officials asked both governing bodies to continue earlier calendar coordination on CIP and budget planning and to schedule a joint fall meeting to follow up on timelines and implementation steps; no capital project was formally approved or appropriated during the meeting.