New SCSU-Strong School Resurrected

A new $45 million K‑4 ​“lab” school that alders were dead set against rebuilding last year got a renewed lease on life after key alders had a change of heart.

In a 6 – 5 vote Monday night, the Board of Alders Finance Committee Monday night advanced a capital projects budget for the upcoming fiscal year that includes borrowing to build the new the Strong 21st Century Communications Magnet and Lab School on the Southern Connecticut State University (SCSU) campus.

Now that capital projects budget, along with the city’s main operating budget, goes before the full Board of Alders on June 6 for a final vote.

The group voting in favor of the new school included the members most aligned with the labor-supported majority on the full board.

Last budget season, alders overwhelmingly turned down the plan for the new school, which the state has promised to pay 79 percent of the cost to build. The state gave the city one more year to approve its stake in the plan; the Harp administration successfully lobbied Board President Tyisha Walker and Dixwell Alder Jeanette Morrison, who last year helped lead the effort to defeat the plan. Monday night they both supported it.

The state is offering a grant of $34.3 million to allow the city Board of Education to build the 440-student lab school in partnership with Southern. The city’s stake is $10.7 million in bonding money.

Last year the alders said the city simply couldn’t afford to borrow to build any more schools.

But this time, alders split along the lines of those who still believe that the city can’t afford another new school, and those who have since been convinced that the city can’t afford not to build the new school.

Alder Morrison said she had a change of heart after hearing that repairing Strong’s existing facility at Legion Avenue and Orchard Street to get maybe a few more years of life out of it would cost the city about $9 million. She said it seemed most cost effective to her to pay a little more and get a new school that would last at least 30 years rather than continuing to put band-aids on the problem.

“This is almost like a car that every week you’re doing something — putting on brakes, putting in a new transmission — that you’re not going to get but so much time out of,” she said. ​“Sometimes you have to bite the bullet and buy the new car.”

Morrison said that is especially true when this might be the last time the state is willing to offer up the money to cover 79 percent of the cost of constructing the school. The state approved the school construction grant that covers the bulk of the cost of the school two years ago this month. But with the state projecting possibly multi-year budget deficits, alders now in favor of building the school pointed out, this might be the city’s last shot to replace the crumbling school with state assistance.

Morrison also pointed out that school officials have estimated that the city can get between $6 million and $8 million for the current school property, which could be used toward paying down the debt service on the new school. She said last year there appeared to be no way to build the school without raising taxes, but this year the administration has found the funds. (The property is across the street from Centerplan’s Route 34 West development and near the expanding Yale-New Haven Hospital campus.)

“For me I don’t like to use good money, just to throw it away,” she said. ​“Putting band-aids on this old school is like throwing away good money. I think we should take into consideration the monies that are here; I don’t think that’s going to be there next year.”

East Rock Alder Anna Festa voiced skepticism that the city could recoup money toward any debt incurred for school construction.

“That piece of property is not even worth $1 million,” she said of the current Strong School site, the former Vincent Mauro School on Orchard Street. ​“I don’t know where anyone is getting that appraisal for that property, but that’s a joke. It’s not worth $8 million.”

Festa also said she fears the property could be sold to a not-for-profit organization, with no proceeds to the city. (A not-for-profit, Continuum of Care, moved its headquarters into the Route 34 West Project, but a private developer built it, and it’s paying taxes.)

Hill Alders Dolores Colon and Latrice James pointed to the current school’s crumbling infrastructure. They said it’s also overcrowded. But fellow Hill Alder David Reyes Jr. raised concern that building the new school is more about creating a specific tie with SCSU, while in his opinion, the university hasn’t developed significant partnerships with the nearby public schools that are already in its backyard.

Board President Walker said that she agrees with Reyes that SCSU and other colleges and universities should strengthen their ties to public schools. But she argued that having Strong School on Southern’s campus will expose children to college at a young age. She said part of why she didn’t support the school last year is that she didn’t feel the administration had done a good enough job educating alders about what the school was about. She said it did a better job this year. The administration envisions the school partnering with SCSU education students and putting its own students into a pipeline for future teaching careers.

The opposition to the school plan Monday was led by Annex Alder Alphonse Paolillo Jr.. He said alders had determined last year, when the city was not faced with budget cuts, that it could not afford to go into debt for a new Strong School. He said it didn’t make sense to him that his colleagues would support going into debt now, when the city had to absorb a shortfall and likely will have to face future shortfalls. He pointed out that the administration was coming up with the $10.7 million for the Strong School at the expense of other important budget items like maintenance on current schools.

He offered an amendment that would have capped the city’s contribution toward the building project at just under $10.7 million. His amendment failed 6 – 5.

But alders successfully added the following policy amendments, which require:

• A review of all the account balances of both completed and current capital education and non-education projects.
• The use of any leftover funds to pay down the debt service for the new school.
• Devoting proceeds from the sale or lease of the current Strong School on Orchard, and the original Strong School building on Grand Avenue in Fair Haven, to reducing the debt service.

Paolillo along with Morris Cove Alder Sal DeCola, Fair Haven Alder Ernie Santiago, Reyes and Festa ultimately voted against the final amended version of the capital project budget.

Westville Alder Adam Marchand and Edgewood Alder Evette Hamilton along with Morrison, Colon, Walker and James voted for the amended capital project. The budget and its amendments then received a first reading Monday night before the full Board of Alders.

In the middle of a Board of Education meeting, which was also taking place Monday night, Mayor Toni Harp received a text message with the Strong School vote. She read the news aloud to the public in the audience. Board members were distracted for a minute trying to figure out how much money the alders had cut from the budget in a separate vote Monday night, whispering to each other until they were called to order.

Superintendent Garth Harries heard the news of the budget cut after the five-hour board meeting and a subsequent executive session ended just before 1 a.m. He called it ​“gratifying” that the alders voted to ​“support the needs” of Strong School.” But the budget cut will ​“translate into reduced services, if it continues,” he said. ​“If anything, our students need more services, not less.”

Aliyya Swaby contributed to this report.