New board member challenges Fort Plain bus garage project

By MIKE ZUMMO, The Leader-Herald

FORT PLAIN - Rusty Capece, the Fort Plain Central School District Board of Education's newly elected member, said about 500 district residents signed a petition in about 10 days asking the board to reconsider building a new bus garage next to Harry Hoag Elementary School.

The garage is part of a $17.3 million capital project approved by district voters in February. The garage is expected to cost nearly $6.5 million.

"To spend over $6 million is ridiculous," said Capece, who circulated petitions opposing the new bus garage. "I've been reading that Johnstown, which is a bigger school district, is looking to spend about $2.5 million. I can't understand why Fort Plain needs to spend that much money for a bus garage."

At a Greater Johnstown School District Facilities Committee meeting June 11, officials from Ashley McGraw Architects told the committee the district would have to spend $2.5 million to $3.5 million for a facility that would house the district's 22 buses.

Capece said he was told Fort Plain has 15 large buses and four smaller buses.

"I am not really in favor of a school district operating the buses," Capece said. "I feel that they're in the education business, not the transportation business. It would be more cost-effective to write one check per year to someone like Brown Transportation."

More than 92 percent of the $17.3 million capital-project cost comes from state building aid and a state Expanding Our Children's Education and Learning grant, while only 5.2 percent of the funding will come from property taxes and 2.6 percent will come from capital reserves and the fund balance. However, Capece is concerned about what would happen if the state can't pay the money it promised.

"This project started in 2004, and in 2004, the economic condition of the country was a whole lot different than it is now," Capece said. "Someone on the board or in the administration should have had foresight in 2008 and put the brakes on this and say, take a look at our economy."

The rest of the project will go toward improvements and renovations to the elementary school and the Fort Plain Junior/Senior High School. The $6.7 million in improvements to the elementary school involve reconfiguring the bus loop, a new handicapped-accessible main entrance, roof replacements, door pads, sidewalks and foundation work.

About $2.8 million in renovations is planned for the high school.

"I think the rest of it's great," Capece said. "We need a new roof. They need wheelchair access and they need some parking lot repaving."

Board of Education President David Fredericks said it isn't possible to stop just one part of the capital project.

"It would also change the whole concept of the project," he said. "It was all voted on. Any changes or alterations are going to cost the taxpayers more."

Fredericks said the district has met all the requirements the state has asked for regarding the capital project, and it has received a verbal OK.

"We're just waiting for the paperwork to get back and to go over and put the project out to bid," he said.

Capece said he plans to raise the bus garage issue Tuesday at his first meeting as a Board of Education member.