Phenix City Board of Education requests $800K from council

The Phenix City Board of Education has asked the Phenix City Council for $800,000 to help pay for a new bus maintenance facility and previously announced projects.

Superintendent Randy Wilkes made the board’s annual request for funding from the city in a letter dated April 26.

This year’s request includes $500,000 for a new bus maintenance facility that would cost $2.25 million. It also includes $300,000 to defray the costs of:

▪  $1.5 million 1:1 computer device initiative. It started this school year, when students in grades 6-8 received an iPad Air with electronic textbooks. It will continue next school year, when students in grades 9-12 will receive a Chromebook with electronic textbooks.

▪  $875,000 to install SmartLabs in each of the seven elementary schools. In SmartLabs, students explore the STEM subjects of science, technology, engineering and math through media arts and project-based learning.

▪  $500,000 to furnish the $3.3 million construction of Central High’s multipurpose expansion facility, being built between the softball field’s centerfield fence and the gym. It is scheduled to be finished in December and will comprise classrooms for health, physical education and driver’s education, special-education testing and after-school tutoring, an indoor artificial turf practice field, strength and conditioning stations, two batting cages, a training room, locker rooms and storage.

The new bus maintenance facility would be near South Girard School, on a parking lot used for spare buses now, Wilkes told the Ledger-Enquirer in an email Monday. Contingent on funding, he said, the project would start “perhaps next summer” and take about six months.

The current bus maintenance facility adjacent to the Educational Services Center is inadequate, Wilkes said in his letter to the council. He listed the following reasons:

▪  Larger buses extend beyond the width of the bus bays.

▪  Lifts and other modern mechanisms aren’t supported to complete maintenance.

▪  No climate control.

▪  Can’t accommodate entire bus fleet.

▪  Ground eroding under asphalt.

Asked for his response to this year’s request, Phenix City Mayor Eddie Lowe emailed this to the Ledger-Enquirer on Monday: “We have just started looking/working on the city’s budget. At this time I cannot say what the city will be able to appropriate. However, I would tell you and would like for you to tell the public that this council has appropriated more than any other council since 1996. Budget work sessions are currently scheduled for the third week of June.”

Last year, the council appropriated $200,000 after the board requested $1 million. The school system is using those city funds, Wilkes said, to help pay for technology in the $2.1 million Dyer Family STEM Center being constructed at Phenix City Intermediate School. The center is scheduled to open this fall.

This story was originally published May 2, 2016 at 10:38 AM with the headline "Phenix City Board of Education requests $800K from council."