On Sunday Perry Hill School will officially be dedicated, but for now its media center is empty and unused.
That’s because the money earmarked to furnish the center was diverted to pay for unexpected costs that cropped up during the construction process that transformed the former Shelton Intermediate School building into a state-of-the-art fifth- and sixth-grade school.
But after two approvals this month, the problem will likely be solved within the next couple of months.
This month the Board of Aldermen approved using $100,000 of bonded funds to purchase the needed furniture for the media center. This week the Perry Hill School Building Committee approved moving forward with the purchase.
Neither committee chairman Shawn Sullivan nor Operations Director Bill Banfe could be reached for comment.
Parent and Citizens United chairman Chris Panek, also a former aldermen, was at the meeting and said the committee initially estimated the furniture to cost $136,000 but was able to get that figure reduced to $119,000, and then further reduced to the $100,000 figure.
The budget problem was partially caused by the underground tunnels that run under the school, which was built decades ago and used as the intermediate school until the new Shelton Intermediate School opened in 2001.
“They never anticipated problems with the tunnels,” Board of Aldermen president John Anglace said. “When it came time to work on the tunnels, the contractor said they wouldn’t send their guys in there because there could be mold or asbestos or just about anything in there.”
It was then that the building committee had to come up with the money to pay for that remediation work, Anglace said, and that money came from the media center furniture account.
“The building committee had to make the decision to hold up the project or get someone in there,” Anglace said. “If there was mold in there it had to be taken care of.”
There may have been other funds that could have been used, Anglace said, such as the money that paid for shubbery in the courtyard. But those funds were spent before the tunnel problem arose.
“It is unfortunate that the decision for the courtyards was made early on,” he said.
Click here to read background articles about the budget problems with the construction project.
Panek said that Mayor Mark A. Lauretti has told the committee that he wants the purchase to go out to bid rather than use the vendor who initially bid on the project. That, Panek said, will “definitely prolong the process.”
Lauretti couldn’t be reached for comment Friday.
It is estimated that it will take eight weeks for the furniture to be delivered once it’s ordered, Panek said.
Regardless of the empty center, the school will be dedicated Sunday at 1 p.m.
“Right from beginning, the building committee did everything they could to make [Perry Hill] a first class facility,” Anglace said. “They put a tremendous amount of hours into it and they did an excellent job.”
