Tension lay thickly over the meeting room at this week’s face-off between the Charles County Board of Education and the county Board of Commissioners.  It emanated from the members of the BoE who came prepared for battle.  Do or die, they were determined to secure a construction funding guarantee for the new St. Charles high school so the school can open in June 2011 whether or not the financially strapped State comes through with its portion of the funding in time.  

   The problem is that a financially strapped State government also means a County government with a tighter budget.  And, the Board of Commissioners are not willing to commit the equivalent of 1/3 their annual budget to one construction project.  The general consensus of the Board by the end of the BoE’s prepared statements was that no matter the singular importance of education, it isn’t fiscally possible for the Board to commit that much money to the BoE.  

   “If the State doesn’t come forward [with its share], the County is left funding a $97 million school.  We cannot afford that,” Board of Commissioners President Wayne Cooper (D-at large) told the school board.  

   One month ago the BoE appealed to the state Board of Public Works to include the new high school in its list of projects this year.  The BPW usually hands down its decisions before the end of the General Assembly’s legislative session, so the school board expects to have word from the state any day now.  

   However, Commissioner Gary Hodge (D-district 4) said he had “talked with several senior officials in Annapolis and all of them indicated a lack of confidence that this school will be approved [for funds this year].” 

   Although each of the commissioners expressed belief in the necessity of constructing more schools to keep up with the county’s population growth, they could not guarantee the school board could build the school as it’s currently planned.  

   Commissioner Reuben Collins II (D-district 3) told the BoE that they made a compelling argument for building the new school, but that he didn’t see how the county could fund it with other county issues also facing economic uncertainty. 

   “The fundamental issue is allocation of resources,” said Hodge.  “I’m not convinced that we can put [nearly] $100 million into a new school and adequately fulfill our obligations to the other 26,000 students [in the county].”  

   School board Chairman Donald Wade began the meeting segment with a tactful impassioned statement on the importance of the new school to the school system.  He expressed the BoE’s frustration at the whole fiscal situation, “We feel like pawns in a political game.”  

   Among other statements, BoE member Pamela Pedersen boldly took the commissioners to task for uncontrolled development within her constituency, “Building is out-of-sight in this area and you’ve not controlled growth to-date.”  She said the BoE offered several suggestions for limiting the number of new students coming into the county, but it didn’t appear that the county had put any of the suggestions to use. 

   Cooper told Pedersen that St. Charles developer ACPT has a legal right to build 300 homes annually.  He said because of Docket 90, there’s nothing the commissioners can do to limit the pace of that development.

   Docket 90, the development agreement for St. Charles, was signed in 1972.  It contains provisions from both the developer and the Charles County Government intended to ensure that the planned community would mitigate the impact of such residential growth.  ACPT builds new roads and infrastructure and additionally donates school sites, and open space.  

   Currently developers county-wide pay a $1,500 “school allocation fee” for each housing unit they build.  Those fees are intended to cover the costs of new school construction.  However, construction costs rose while the fee remained the same over the last several years.   The fees now fall well short of providing the actual cost of building a new school.

   Board of Commissioners Vice President Edith Patterson (D-district 2) asked the Board of Ed to consider if the school could be built in stages, if the core academic functions could be built first and the extracurricular amenities added later.  

  According to information the commissioners received from Assistant Superintendent for Supporting Services, Chuck Wineland, the $97 million construction cost includes:

~ $7.534 million for a swimming pool complex
~ $3.024 million to build athletic fields, larger parking lots and off-site utilities
~ $6.047 million for kitchen, built-in athletic equipment, plaques, a projection screen & brackets, an athletic stadium press box, as well as kitchen equipment, moveable media center cabinetry and additional classroom equipment not covered by state funds.  

   After hearing that he couldn’t have the school he envisioned without waiting for state support, Charles County Public Schools Superintendent James Richmond sullenly blamed the commissioners for his disappointment.  His words and tone suggested that Richmond thought the county’s current financial limits were simply the commissioners’ whim.  

   Commendably, President Cooper ignored the bait and Chairman Wade encouraged both boards to remember that the problem wouldn’t be solved with incivility.  

   “I’d like to see the comments calm down.  The words that have appeared in the [news] don’t serve any of us,” said Wade.

   The Board of Education appeared before the Board of Commissioners on a day when six local teens spent part of their day “job shadowing” the County Commissioners and the County Administrator, watching the governmental process in Charles County in hopes of gaining first-hand knowledge about the rigors of the jobs.

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