FR will file PlanCon paperwork for Sloan project, hope for 'miracle in Harrisburg'
Receiving state reimbursement for their Sloan Elementary project seems unlikely, but Franklin Regional school board members dared to dream, proposing to file paperwork through Pennsylvania's PlanCon program.
“It's being done, just in case there's a miracle in Harrisburg,” school board President Dr. Larry Borland said.
PlanCon, originally designed to provide partial state reimbursement for school district construction projects, is currently under a moratorium that extends through the current school year.
The school board canceled a special meeting this past July at which they'd planned to file PlanCon paperwork for the Sloan project. Board solicitor Gary Matta said filing the paperwork now is taking “a belt-and-suspenders approach, making sure we have fulfilled any requirements that may come up in the future.”
“This may be something that will never show the fruits of our labor,” Matta told board members. “But we still want to make sure if later on they say, ‘Well, if you would have filled out this paperwork, there'd be reimbursement,' we've done things properly.”
Superintendent Gennaro Piraino was among the school administrators to testify last spring before the state's PlanCon committee , which is charged with making recommendations to revamp the program. The current state backlog for reimbursement is in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
Piraino said those recommendations are expected in June.
“Our hope is that our state representatives who are talking about PlanCon now recognize where school districts have been in the last decade-plus, and will advocate for districts like us who are in a tough situation because (the state is) not accepting (PlanCon) applications,” he said.
Some have suggested that the district consider waiting to start the roughly $54 million Sloan Elementary campus project, to see what a revamped PlanCon program could mean financially.
Matta said constantly rising costs make that unfeasible.
“The problem with delaying is that, every day, construction costs increase,” he said. “So by waiting, even if there is some reimbursement, we would likely lose those savings to increases in the overall cost.”
The board, which this fall authorized work on a $9.9 million bond issue to start the project, will vote on filing the PlanCon paperwork at its Jan. 22 meeting, set for 7:30 p.m. at the administrative offices in Heritage Elementary School, 3240 School Road in Murrysville.
Neither Matta nor Piraino had high hopes for the immediate future of PlanCon.
“My guess is with the structural deficit facing Pennsylvania, the odds of PlanCon coming back in its current form are slim to none,” Piraino said. “But we'll wait and see what the Plancon committee comes back with in June.”
Patrick Varine is a Tribune-Review staff writer. Reach him at 724-850-2862, pvarine@tribweb.com or via Twitter @MurrysvilleStar.
