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As referendum approaches, officials say Hernando schools face crisis with postponed repairs

 
Sean Arnold, a district official, points to a leaky awning at Pine Grove Elementary. He says the only affordable repair is caulking.
Sean Arnold, a district official, points to a leaky awning at Pine Grove Elementary. He says the only affordable repair is caulking.
Published July 15, 2015

SPRING HILL — Sean Arnold started his tour of Pine Grove Elementary School last week with a disclaimer.

"You're not going to see a building crumbling and falling into the ground," said Arnold, the Hernando County School District's executive director of support operations.

What Arnold did point out were symptoms of cooling systems and roofs that have passed the end of their designed lifespan.

"The key here is deferred maintenance," he said.

An air-conditioning malfunction left offices at Pine Grove several degrees higher than the rest of the building. Rust streaked downspouts that previously had been repaired with inserted lengths of PVC pipe. Water dripped through a leak in an aluminum awning that had been caulked and repainted several times.

The conditions are common at school district buildings, which need a total of $87 million worth of deferred maintenance. And though rusty downspouts are not as dramatic as eliminating music, art and sports programs — the threat of which backers of the district's proposed half-cent sales tax expected to generate support among voters — the backlog of repairs still represents a real crisis, according to Arnold and others.

Until the district finds the revenue to address the problems, the repair bill will grow faster and faster, meaning it will eventually bleed money from cherished programs, or expose students to unsafe conditions, said John Mitten, the co-chairman of Save Our Schools Hernando. Save Our Schools, a political action committee, has raised about $27,000 for the campaign to restore the sales tax, which expired at the end of 2014.

Voters will decide the referendum in a special election Sept. 8.

"There are two things that are essential for running schools," Mitten said. "You have to have teachers, and you have to have buildings. And we can't settle for any old buildings. We must have safe environments for our students."

The change in focus to repairs came last month, after School Board members found out that higher-than-expected levels of state funding had cut the expected budget shortfall from more than $12 million to about $6.3 million.

That gap will still require deep cuts, including an end to busing for students who live within 2 miles of their assigned schools and the elimination of jobs for some academic coaches and at least one teaching position from each school. But it seems likely to spare the district from the need to slash cherished programs.

However, Arnold said, it's only temporarily.

The district has been putting off maintenance needs at least since the start of the recession, he said. And unless the issue is addressed, the expense will balloon.

According to a newly released Save Our Schools brochure, the district has siphoned off $23 million from the maintenance budget since 2008 to maintain academic and other programs.

Also, Arnold said, the industry standard for routine maintenance is 1 percent of the value of the buildings — about $700 million in the case of the district's schools and other structures.

But rather than spending $7 million annually on maintenance in recent years, he said, the district has spent an average of less than $2 million.

That does not include the larger sums needed for roofs and heating and air-conditioning systems, which represent almost all of the $87 million backlog.

Roofs and air conditioners are designed to last about 20 years. Across the district, as each of these big-ticket items passes that age, they go on the list of deferred maintenance.

And the state of Pine Grove shows that the lifespan estimates are not arbitrary numbers. Age has consequences.

Pine Grove, which was built in 1989, needs $6.6 million in repairs to its roofs and air-conditioning system.

The downspouts are rusting partly because the roofs are old and do not shed water the way they should, Arnold said.

If water continues to seep through the awnings that cover the walkways, the beams that support them will deteriorate, eventually requiring more expensive repairs.

"That should probably be pulled apart and replaced," he said, pointing to the dripping awning. "But all we can afford is caulk."

Contact Dan DeWitt at ddewitt@tampabay.com; follow @ddewitttimes.