Submitted by Michael Spilo. Mr. Spilo is a member of the CMS Building Committee and is Chair of the RTM Public Works and RTM Labor Contracts committees. The views expressed are his own.
Rebuilding Central Middle School (CMS) in FY 24 is a top priority for Republicans. Unfortunately, reckless supersizing of CMS and Old Greenwich School (OGS) by Democrats and their sidekicks created roadblocks. They requested that CMS be built 65% larger than needed, and they support this with misleading numbers and misinformation on both CMS and OGS.
The BOE say they plan to build the new CMS for 660 students. 660 itself makes no sense when the current enrollment is 511 and the BOE’s projected enrollment for CMS students is 450 in 2030 and experts project that to drop to further by 2040, (see link at end). But the 660 number also understates capacity.
Realistically, the latest proposed (124,000 sq.ft.) building can accommodate 800 or more students, far more than have ever attended CMS.
How is it 800? The BOE’s 660 number is based on 20 students per classroom with 800 sq.ft. classrooms. The current CMS classrooms are 680 sq.ft. At 800 sq.ft. the classroom capacity is 25 students. Furthermore, limiting capacity calculations to academic classrooms ignores students who are in special education classrooms, gym, art, music and other spaces, which have also been supersized. So the true capacity is much larger than 660.
On the same basis, a right-size school for 550 students, with larger, yet not supersized classrooms could still accommodate as many as 700 students, if they magically and suddenly materialize. A 550 student, right-sized school would have also kept the project moving forward smoothly.
The finance board (BET) prudently asked the BOE to reconsider the size and is awaiting estimates.
Similar misleading, bloated math is coming out of the OGS Building Committee (BC). The OGS BC decided to increase their contingency fee from 10% to 20% for no good reason, and to calculate inflation through 2024 at 38% and future inflation for 2024 and 2025 at 6%. But inflation has totaled 20% since 2019, is currently at 4.5% and is projected to be down below 3.5% by 2025.
The result of this budget super-sizing is that OGS BC requested nearly 50% more than they needed. Thanks to the diligence of the Republican BET this was pushed back, and the BET requested an independent estimate to verify the cost.
But these delays were unnecessary and could have been avoided.
The question people should be asking is “why the supersizing?” Could it be the Greenwich McMansion syndrome where big public buildings have been all the rage since our cavernous High School auditorium, MISA, was built?
If you consider that this is an election year, and that the Chairman of the CMS building committee is the former Chair of the Greenwich Democrats, and consider the fact that this Democrat Chair recently went to the nonpartisan PTA to request that the PTA lobby against the Republican BET, perhaps you might come to a different conclusion – it’s not about kids, it’s about politics and it is about Democrats building needless roadblocks IN ORDER to shout about how Republicans hate kids.
Either way, this isn’t about the children’s welfare, it’s about useless, unchecked spending. And useless spending for political reasons is the essence of Democrat politics.
SPILO: Stop the Super-Size Building April 12, 2023