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Politics & Government

School Committee Halts Bond Request

Davisville Middle School roof and other capital improvements are on hold until the School Committee finds a way to pay for them — and decides whether $6.4 million is needed.


It would appear North Kingstown's leaders are in no mood to borrow.

Meeting one night after the North Kingstown Town Council a proposed $34 million sewer bond request Monday, the School Committee voted down a proposal for a $6.4 million school capital improvement bond.

The Rhode Island Department of Education Board of Regents approved the bond request on Nov. 3 after the school facilities committee studied the proposal. The Board of Regents may approve bond requests only for "projects that are necessitated by immediate health and safety reasons."

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The bond would cover retrofits to meet the Americans with Disabilities Act at four elementary schools and Davisville Middle School; HVAC system replacements at two elementary schools and DMS; and a new roof and asbestos abatement at DMS.

School Committee members Lynda Avanzato and Bill Mudge said they accepted the need for a new roof but questioned whether the asbestos abatement, required by the building code, was really necessary as long as the tiles in question were stable and posed no immediate threat.

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Mudge asked whether there was some way to apply more than $2 million unspent from a previous bond issue to the new projects. And he questioned whether the bond amount could be lowered if the work was first put out to bid to determine actual costs.

Committee member Joe Thompson, echoing the council members concerns of a night ago, said recent voter history is not favorable to bond requests. After a lengthy discussion, the board voted 3-2 not to ask the Town Council to submit enabling legislation to place the bond question before voters.

After the meeting, School Committee Chairwoman Kimberly Page said the bond might be brought up again when the full committee meets — members Richard Welch and Larry Ceresi were absent — and the questions about costs had been answered. The committee has six months from the Board of Regents' approval to get the question before voters.

In other action, the committee approved the purchase of a 22-passenger replacement minibus for about $63,000, but refused a request for $37,000 to buy a replacement maintenance truck. Thompson said buying a truck would give the schools another reason not to consolidate school services with town services.

Consolidation also came up in a presentation on the school telephone system by Richard Booth, school department network manager. A consultant's report recently recommended the schools explore merging its IT and telephone systems with those of the town, and consider switching from conventional phone service to Voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP service.

Booth explained that the schools' current phone service contract with Verizon ends Dec. 18, and the School Committee must approve a new phone plan at its Dec. 13 meeting to avoid jumps in monthly phone charges.

Booth said that while existing equipment is adequate for conventional phone service, the schools would have to spend up to $500,000 on new technology to support VoIP services administrered by the town. He said that so far, the town has not specified what service level agreement it could provide for the schools.

He recommended the committee accept a new one-year agreement with Cox Communications to provide existing and enhanced phone service within the current telephone budget. Superintendent Phil Auger concurred. However, Thompson and committee member Melvoid Benson said they did not want a phone plan to block future consolidation efforts.

The committee is scheduled to vote on the phone system Dec. 13.

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