The Ulster BOCES whistle-stop tour of local school districts hit Saugerties recently as Superintendent Charles Khoury shared plans for a $39-million capital project for improvements at their Port Ewen and New Paltz locations. Should districts like Saugerties approve the plan, Khoury said, they would have greater flexibility over how to structure financing.
Khoury and Charles Bastian, CEO of Bernard P. Donegan, Inc., a financial planner in Victor, made their pitch at a meeting of the Saugerties Central School District’s (SCSD) Board of Education on November 9. Khoury detailed the complexities of a four-year project that would begin in 2024, primarily being undertaken when students aren’t in class.
The eight school districts in Ulster County would pay for the project based upon their use of BOCES, with roughly 61 percent of the cost reimbursed through state aid. The SCSD’s share would be around $5 million. Other local districts include Kingston ($11.9 million), New Paltz ($4.2 million) and Onteora ($2.4 million).
The project would largely focus on BOCES’ Port Ewen facility, with $21 million earmarked for work at the Career and Technical Education Center, and $10.7 million for the Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning. The remaining $7.3 million would go to the Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning in New Paltz.
But Khoury noted that the project wasn’t just about the future, but also the past.
“It’s important that the board understand where we came from and how we got to this place today,” he said.
A countywide referendum for a $15.2 million project held on October 17, 1989 passed by a 2-1 margin, with $2.5 million going toward the purchase of the CTE facility in Port Ewen. Ulster BOCES had already occupied that space on a ten-year lease that cost $300,000 per year.
The remaining funds were put toward upgrades to existing buildings and the erection of a two-story Special and Alternative Education wing.
“Prior to that, special education students who attended Ulster BOCES were housed in a vacated Grand Union supermarket north of Port Ewen,” Khoury said. “From the newspaper articles that I read there were some horrible conditions on that site.”
The remaining $2 million from the 1989 referendum went toward expanding the New Paltz site by building a 10,540-square foot addition on the administrative building and adding a 3,000-square foot storage garage.
According to Ulster BOCES, that project adjusted for inflation would equal $33.6 million today.
Most component districts chose to fund the 1989 project over a 15-year period. Should all eight school districts in Ulster County support the proposed $39 million renovation plan, each would have a choice of figuring out how to fund their respective portions. The Kingston City School District’s Board of Education has already given unanimous support to the project, but others are being asked to respond between December 7-16.
If the proposal doesn’t receive full support, Ulster BOCES could still move forward by receiving a simple majority in a public referendum, an option which would remove funding flexibility.
“With a unanimous inter-municipal agreement signed by all of the (school) boards, you get to control locally how you finance your component share,” said Bastian. “Whether you want to do it on a cash basis over four or five years, a seven-year financing, a 20-year financing, you get to control those decisions locally. Which would be very nice, certainly rather than one-size-fits-all.”
Funding flexibility may have a strong appeal to the SCSD. The meeting was held at Mt. Marion Elementary School, where prior to the BOCES presentation school officials heard from around a dozen community members who were upset about the possibility that the school might be closed, in part to overcome a looming $12.5 million budget gap over the next four years.
“The public is very concerned about our financial position, and they’re obviously wanting us to keep all of our elementary school buildings,” said Saugerties School Board President Robert Thomann.
The timeline includes all of 2022 being spent on preparing detailed plans, with a review by the New York State Education Department between January 1-October 30, 2023 anticipated. Bids would be prepared, advertised and awarded between November 1, 2023 and April 2024, with construction set to begin in July 2024 and be completed during the summer of 2028. Work would only be done in the summer to avoid disrupting BOCES courses for students.
“I don’t have another auto shop to move kids to while we’re renovating the auto shop,” Khoury said. “I don’t have another cosmetology lab, I don’t have another welding facility, and so on. We have a very small window for renovation.”
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