At the regular meeting of the Chinook School Board held Jan. 14, the Board approved a motion to self-fund $4 million in renovations to Fairview School to keep progress on track with the new École Centennial so both schools are ready for September 2014.
The action was taken in response to a delay in funding approval from the Ministry of Education.
“It doesn’t look like it’s coming through as quickly as we thought it would, so now we made a motion to self-fund it. That’s really what it boils down to,” said Board Chair Randy Beler.
“We plan on having both schools open September 2014. We might be a little bit behind with Fairview but now the ball’s rolling, so that’s why we had to get that one out of the way.”
Chinook’s Chief Financial Officer Rod Quinton said, “Right now we’ve got about a $4 million Opinion of Probable Cost. We’re working with that as a starting point; we’re hoping it’s less. It would be somewhere in that range. We’ll wait and see until we get more into the final design and the tender, obviously, somewhere down the road, how close we are to that Opinion of Probable Cost.”
The Board had approved a Conceptual Project Planning Application (B1) in Feb. 2012 to determine the extent of the renovations that will be required to accommodate the K-8 program at Fairview. That application was approved for submission to the Ministry in June of 2012 to accommodate the expected enrolment increase at Fairview School to approximately 300 students.
Monday’s motion was not unanimously approved, with three board members opposing the strategy.
