Project manager: Financing's in place

Every new school has a contingency fund, the project manager said.
By PETER H. MILLIKEN
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
WARREN -- The $153 million city schools construction project is financially secure, the man coordinating the effort told an audience.
"We're confident that we're not going to run out of money," said Frank Caputo, project manager. Each construction site has a designated budget and a 5 percent contingency fund in case of cost overruns, he said.
That amounts to $850,000 in contingency money for each kindergarten through eighth-grade building and a $1.7 million cushion for the new high school, he said. "Our task is to make sure that we stay on budget, and we are," he added at Thursday's community meeting.
The board is committed to building two kindergarten through eighth-grade schools on the city's west side.
The construction project will replace the district's 13 school buildings with five new ones by mid-2009. It will consist of a new Warren G. Harding High School adjacent to the current one and four new buildings for kindergarten through eighth grade -- one in each quadrant of the city.
Funding sources
Eighty-one percent of the project's funding comes from the state and the remainder from a bond issue voters approved in November 2003.
The project began when ground was broken last fall for the first new K-8 building, which will be off Atlantic Avenue Northeast, next to Lincoln Elementary School. There, the school board already owned the full 20-acre site. The new school is scheduled to open in fall 2007.
To expedite construction, Lincoln will close at the end of this school year, and its pupils will be relocated to Devon Elementary School on Central Parkway for next school year. Lincoln will be demolished this summer.
The board's goal is to open the new Lincoln and Willard buildings about the same time to allow major cost savings to be achieved from the closings of Garfield, Laird Avenue and McGuffey elementary schools and East and Turner middle schools, said Gordon Hazen, supervisor of student services.
Willard site
Preparations for construction of the new Francis Willard School, a K-8 building on Willard Avenue Southeast, have begun.
The Willard site is the only large southeast side site where the board can build without incurring high land acquisition and demolition costs, Caputo said.
The city has received permission from the National Park Service to transfer operation and maintenance of Wallace Lynn Park to the school board, clearing the last land acquisition hurdle for the new Willard building.
The board is considering Southwest Park and Jefferson Elementary School as potential sites for a new K-8 building on the city's southwest side. McGuffey Elementary School and a site on Parkman Road next to Trumbull Plaza are being considered for the K-8 building on the city's northwest side.