To the Editor:
Who wouldn’t like to look around at their finances and find a loose $545,000 floating around? The Alexandria School Board did recently and was delighted to spend it right away — not on children’s education — but on tennis courts.
I am not sure the taxpayers of Alexandria should be so happy about this “lucky find.” When originally proposed, the new tennis courts at T.C. Williams high school were priced at $608,768. Then it was decided to add lights which increased the cost an additional $220,000. Now there is an ”ooops” from responsible officials that they forgot to include in their estimate all kinds of “soft costs” (their term) that amount to another $545,029. That brings the cost of the courts up to almost $1.4 million and some estimates range as high as $1.9 million when all the counting is done.
More than a half million dollars is a lot of money to make up, you say. Well, not in our school system. Folks there looked around and found $385,223 that had been allocated in 2013 for a electrical switchgear replacement at one school. It wasn’t needed after all. The switchgear had already been upgraded a couple years earlier — and no one knew! So the money — taxpayer money — had just been sitting for months waiting for another purpose, presumably tennis courts. With that boodle in the bag it did not take long for the system to be combed for other idle moneys and then combined to make up the perceived short-fall for the T.C. Williams project.
The entire process raises a number of serious questions: If the School Board had been told from the outset that the project would cost not $660,000 but $1.3 million and rising, would it have agreed to it? Why were the “soft costs” not considered from the outset? Why was the redundant $385,223 not discovered months ago and returned to the city coffers? How many other “slush funds” may exist in the school system?
Other questions were raised by a member of the School Board, Justin Keating, during deliberations on the funds transfer. He suggested that many of our school children lack adequate classroom space. They are being forced to take instruction and tests in hallways and vacated school libraries. Moreover, a severe shortfall exists in the number of classroom projected to be needed in the next few years. The money should go there. Keating’s objections fell on deaf ears and the board majority agreed to fund courts, not kids.
There has been further fallout from this episode. Andrea Feniak, the then ACPS Director of Planning, Design & Construction, who presented the figures to the board, was heard agreeing with Mr. Keating about where the excess funds should be spent. Within days she was gone from the job and the ACPS is advertising for a replacement. According to the school official to whom I spoke, she was not fired for speaking up but saw “a better opportunity elsewhere.” Indeed.
The lack of transparency and reasonable governance that this situation exposes should be of concern to every man and woman in Alexandria who pays property taxes, as well as parents with children in our schools. It suggests that a thorough investigation may be needed, including scrutiny of those School Board members who consistently pick sports over scholarship in their decision-making.