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Date: March 9, 2011 <br />To: Bernadette Pelissier, Chair of the Board of Orange County Commissioners <br />From: Jamezetta Bedford, Chair of the Chapel Hill - Carrboro City Schools <br />Re: Request for funding for Elementary School #11 <br />At our planning conference on February 16, 2011, administration provided the Board <br />with an update on the district's facility needs. At that time draft SAPFO student <br />projection numbers were shared. It is projected that our elementary student enrollment <br />will be in excess of 105 percent of the SAPFO level of service at the beginning of the <br />2013 -14 school year. The Board discussed this matter and felt that we needed to <br />formally request funding for Elementary #11. Please accept this memo as that request. <br />As you know our eleventh elementary school project has been delayed due to the <br />economy and available county debt capacity. To date, the only funding that has been <br />approved has been for the design process. The building is fully designed and we have <br />received our necessary Town of Chapel Hill approvals. If the school is to be <br />constructed in time, we need to receive funding authorization for the project this spring. <br />A brief timeline is included below. <br />Timeline to meet 2013 -2014 School Year Opening: <br />• Funding Authorization: Late Spring 2011 <br />• Bidding: Summer 2011 <br />• Deconstruction/Recycling of existing buildings: Fall 2011 <br />• Construction: March 2012- Spring 2013 <br />• FF &E and Move in: Summer 2013 <br />Although the economy has made things more difficult, a positive result has been the <br />significant decline in construction costs. In fact our new estimate for Elementary #11 is <br />$20,563,117, about $10 million less than originally expected. This fact, combined with <br />the improving county debt schedule will hopefully provide an opportunity for the <br />Orange County Commissioners to be able to fund this project. The strains on our <br />elementary schools have been increasing as we have approached and exceeded our <br />elementary schools' capacities. Due to enrollment growth, we are being forced to <br />conduct spot redistricting to reassign students from Morris Grove, which opened less <br />than three years ago. We have had to relocate Pre -K exceptional children between <br />