Estimate for Mason school hits $27 million

Dec. 19, 1998
Gazette Online

By Tara Tuckwiller
STAFF WRITER

With the deadline for a Mason County consolidated high school looming three months away, a new price estimate shows that the school will cost almost double the original $14.4 million allocated by the state.
The new estimate, prepared by ZMM Inc. architects, indicates that a 1,400-student high school north of Point Pleasant would cost $27.4 million to build today. That price includes $4.8 million worth of expenses the state School Building Authority does not traditionally fund, such as land and athletic facilities.
Opinions differ among Mason County school board members as to why the cost has increased since the consolidation plan was funded in 1996. Members also are divided over whether Mason County can somehow keep the $14.4 million, even if the county doesn't build a consolidated school.
Jo Hannah Rorrer is part of a board minority that has favored the consolidated high school. Some people in Mason County say they want to abandon the consolidation plan, keep the money anyway and use it to fix up Hannan, Wahama and Point Pleasant high schools.
Rorrer said she doesn't see how that would work.
"The contract with the School Building Authority is to build one high school," Rorrer said. "It seems to me that if we don't do that, they can take it back from us."
The cost of the school has increased because consolidation foes have been stalling the plan for years, she said. Now, the School Building Authority has started making other plans for the $14.4 million.
"It's crunch time now," Rorrer said. "I'd just hope for everybody to take a real good look at what we're about to lose, before that deadline hits."
Shirley Gue, part of the board majority that was elected on an anti-consolidation platform, said she doesn't plan to give up the $14.4 million. She doesn't plan to vote for one county high school, either.
Gue maintains that the money belongs to Mason County, not the School Building Authority. The money was part of a $33 million appropriation that Sen. Oshel Craigo, who represents Mason County, included in a budget bill after the authority failed to fund Mason County's consolidation project. The $33 million was split among Mason, Monroe, Hampshire and Jefferson counties.
"There are legal questions surrounding this money," said Gue, who was involved in anti-consolidation lawsuits before she was elected in May. "Does the SBA have the freedom to disburse this money to other counties, when it was earmarked for Mason County by the Legislature?"
Gue said she asked for the new cost estimate because she never believed the consolidated school could be built for $14.4 million.
"It was never accurate to begin with," Gue said. "I'm not an economist, but I'm sure there's no way a $14 million project could become a $27 million project within a two-year period."
Not normally, said Clacy Williams, executive director of the School Building Authority.
"With a normal inflation rate, $14.4 million might turn into $18 million," he said.
Usually, school cost estimates come in a little over budget, Williams said. The authority then works with the county to trim off a few extras. If the pared-down project still needs more money, the authority can usually come up with that.
"I think the biggest increase we've ever seen has been half a million," he said. "Not $10 million."
Mason County could probably trim some of its project costs, Rorrer said.
"You might have to go to the taxpayers for some of it. The School Building Authority might help out with some of it. You might have to do without some of the extras for a while," she said.
The important thing, she said, is to get the project started before the authority yanks the money.
"I'm not a big gambler," she said. "I want somebody to tell me what we can do if we don't do this. Something safe. Something that's not gambling with $14 million."
The School Building Authority has a short list of projects ready for the $14.4 million, Williams said. They include renovation projects in Greenbrier, Pleasants, Monongalia, Braxton, Barbour, Roane, Webster and Raleigh counties.
Also on the list are a $6.3 million middle school for Petersburg in Grant County; a $4 million intermediate school for Martinsburg in Berkeley County; and a $15 million West Wyoming County high school, which would consolidate Oceana and Baileysville high schools.
"It's our board's intention to redistribute the funds immediately," Williams said.
Whether or not the consolidated school is ever built, the new cost estimate at least allows taxpayers to know what they're getting, Gue said.
"If we were to start one high school and potentially take the county into deficit, I would want to know that," she said. "If we were not to start one high school, I would want people to know whether they could have actually had a state-of-the-art high school for $14.4 million, with no local tax increase."

To contact staff writer Tara Tuckwiller, call 348-5189.