CHARLESTON, W.Va. — This year’s funding request to the state School Building Authority from Ritchie County for two new schools accounts for about a third of the total amount the SBA has to allocate for construction projects statewide this year.
Ritchie County Superintendent Jim Brown made the pitch for the funding this week.
For Ritchie County, the SBA is being asked to allocate $17,160,000 for a new Harrisville Elementary School and a new Creed Collins Elementary School located in Pennsboro.
In all, the SBA’s available Needs Grant funding totals $51.4 million.
The funding requests from all 30 counties add up to $248 million.
“We are willing to consider any funding option, if it’s multi-year, whatever would work best for the Authority,” Brown said.
After two previous proposed school bonds failed, voters in Ritchie County approved a school bond in the 2020 General Election, a first for Ritchie County, according to Brown.
If the SBA request is approved, the SBA money would be combined with $4.6 million in bond funding and $4.6 million in other local funding for the new schools for total school replacement costs of $26.4 million.
“At this point in time, we can bring money to the table and we don’t know if we can do that in the future,” said Dr. Torie Jackson, president of the Ritchie County Board of Education.
“Our excess levy is helping us now and our voters are helping us with the bond, so we do ask you to consider our unique situation.”
In Brown’s view, building two new schools was the best plan.
“Combining both elementary schools into one, one of the existing facilities, is not feasible. One, there’s not adequate space, but we’d also have the furthest students, in either school, traveling 85 minutes on a school bus,” he said.
Brown estimated renovating Creed Collins Elementary, built in 1966, would cost $11 million while the estimated renovation cost for Harrisville Elementary, built in 1965, was $11.9 million.
“These buildings have been well taken care of. They’re clean. We’ve tried to make them as pleasing to the eye. They’re just old buildings,” Brown said.