New offices for school system scrapped again
By: William C. Flook
Examiner Staff Writer
February 24, 2009
Fairfax County supervisors for the second time killed a plan by school officials to buy and renovate a new administrative building at a cost of nearly $100 million, deriding the proposal as ill-timed amid sharp cuts to both school and county spending.
The Board of Supervisors on Monday unanimously rejected the proposal, which would have allowed the public school system to consolidate offices from around the county into one building next to its existing headquarters on Gatehouse Road. The proposal needed the supervisors’ approval to move forward.
“It’s not something that we have to do at this point,” said Lee District Supervisor Jeff McKay. “We’re talking about reductions in force, cuts in critical county services from public safety all the way to human services — not the right time to build a new building for administrative positions.”
The building, called “Gatehouse II,” originally would have cost $110 million to buy and revamp. After supervisors balked at that price tag, school officials renegotiated the purchase and returned with a cost of $94.5 million.
The vote came shortly before supervisors heard details of the county executive’s stark fiscal 2010 budget, which keeps school funding at about the same level despite cutting hundreds of other employees and freezing pay raises. The School Board already has adopted its budget, which also includes pay freezes and position cuts.
School officials say buying Gatehouse II would have freed up much-needed space for instruction at a time when capital budgets are severely constrained.
School Board Chairman Dan Storck defended the proposal as “a creative solution that would have significantly reduced our administrative costs and enabled us to serve children better.”
“This is a great disappointment to the school board,” he said.
Not all school officials were of the same mind.
“It’s the wrong time to spend that kind of money when we have to deal with eliminating positions,” said Ilryong Moon, an at-large school board member and the Democratic nominee for the Board of Supervisors Braddock District seat. “We’re talking about laying off people, program cuts. School buildings need repair and we have students in trailers.”
