RICHMOND, Va. — On a chilly December day at John Marshall High School, Richmond Public Schools (RPS) Chief Operating Officer Dana Fox stood before a gleaming new, two-story exterior wall that formed one side of the massive courtyard at John Marshall High School on Richmond's Northside.
She explained that the brand new siding, and shiny new windows and doors, a $3 million investment, were together just one part of the puzzle that is keeping Richmond's decades-old school infrastructure up to date, and safe for students and staff.
Fox said pulling the funds together for the John Marshall project required some creativity over the course of several years' allocation of Capital Improvement Plan (CIP) money made available to RPS.
"[It's] worth noting is that the wall here at John Marshall, this happened over multiple CIP's, because again, we only get two and a half million dollars," said Fox, referring to money from Richmond's City Council. "So we sort of had to cherry pick at that point what projects we're going to get, what funding. So we would allocate a little bit towards John Marshall for this wall, and then the next year have to do it again, and the next year do it again."
With the new wall as a backdrop, Fox said that over the spring and summer the school system conducted an exhaustive audit of every facility and school in the RPS system, which she said was the first of its kind and would give stakeholders a baseline on what it will take to keep schools safe and functional for years to come.
As for the near-term overall cost, Fox said necessary construction and maintenance for Richmond schools will cost about $43 million over the next 18 months.
That price tag is a subset of the overall cost that the audit estimated it would take to maintain Richmond's schools for the next 70 years.
That multi-generational figure would be in the ballpark of $1.5 billion, said Fox, or about $22 million each year.
As part of the audit process, QR codes were placed on every piece of equipment to better keep up with its maintenance.
"This is huge for us, for our facilities team, because what my team is able to do is then go in with iPads, scan the QR code on that piece of equipment, and they know instantly how much labor has been spent on that equipment, how much materials has been spent, how much time has been spent," Fox explained. "So we're really able to capture the data to know what we're pouring into a piece of equipment and whether or not it's time to prioritize replacing it versus continually trying to repair it."
That $43 million figure will actually turn out to be significantly lower, because several projects involving current roofing and HVAC systems repairs have already had funds allocated. Those projects were underway at the time of the audit and so were not captured as completed.
The John Marshall High School courtyard renovation had also been funded earlier and so its total can be subtracted from the cost projected through 2025.
But Fox explained that since the school system only gets $2.5 million in CIP funding from the city each year, the remaining balance will have to come from the state, from non-profits or from federal grants.
"The number is large," said Fox. "But I think we can partner with our state and local officials and at the federal level to get funding for our facilities that we really, really need. As you can see, in the next 18 months, there's over $40 million of immediate needs. 'Immediate' meaning we need to do something right now, that this is something that cannot wait. It's past its life expectancy. There are safety issues involved, and there might be accessibility issues involved. So it's things that we have to address very, very quickly."
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