The Fairfax County School Board, whose plan to buy a new administrative building was rebuffed twice by county supervisors amid the economic free fall, have turned to a more expensive plan to lease offices.
The original proposal, in which the School Board would have bought and renovated an office building next to its existing headquarters on Gatehouse Road for about $100 million, led to a standoff between the School Board and supervisors. The building the supervisors ultimately rejected in February is now among a handful of sites school officials are considering leasing.
School officials say it’s their only recourse after supervisors shot down the purchase, and readily concede the new plan is more expensive.
“Any way you slice it, this is more costly than what we proposed to the Board of Supervisors a year ago,” School Board Chairman Dan Storck told The Examiner. “Absolutely, positively we would have been far better off financially to purchase the building, both short term and long term. But we don’t have any choice.”
The school system plans to consolidate as many as 500 staff scattered around the county into one or two locations, freeing up two facilities for use as elementary schools, said Fairfax County Schools Chief Operating Officer Dean Tistadt. He said many of those employees are now housed in offices with expiring leases.
But a teachers union official and a county supervisor questioned the new plan, which they say is inappropriate in light of the cutbacks school employees are enduring.
“They cut back everything they could absolutely cut back; now they want a palace for their bureaucrats,” said Fairfax County Federation of Teachers President Mark Glaser.
While a lease with good terms may make sense, “this decision should have been postponed until the economy improves,” said Lee District Supervisor Jeff McKay.
“I don’t know how you consider raising class size, cutting adult education programs, freezing teacher salaries and think it’s fine to lease more office space,” he said.
Tistadt said the leasing proposal was “dramatically” reduced in scope from the original purchase plan.
He said school officials were looking at office space in the general Merrifield area.
