Springs to Tap Reserve Fund for Repairs

The Springs School Board will hold a hearing on Monday on a plan to tap into a repair reserve fund to complete a handful of projects this summer.

The hearing will be at the school following the district's annual organizational meeting, which will begin at 5 p.m.

Liz Mendelman, who served as president of the Springs School Board this past school year, said Monday that the district has about $766,000 in that repair reserve fund, and that the district is not looking to spend all of it this summer.

The district's buildings and grounds committee, which is different from the recently created facilities committee, gathered estimates from contractors for a number of small repairs, Ms. Mendelman said. The specific items that need to be fixed will be detailed on Monday.

"They will be making recommendations on projects that are of a repair nature for the school board to look at, and then the board will decide whether to spend that money or not," she said. "They're all relatively little projects."

If the school board approves the projects, the district will most likely be able to complete them by the time school begins again in September. Ms. Mendelman called it "a tight timeline."

Unlike with the district's capital reserve fund, the school board does not need voter approval to spend money from the repair reserve fund. It was established by the school board during the 2009-10 school year. Since then, Ms. Mendelman said, Springs has been putting aside end-of-year surpluses, "essentially giving us a savings account" for repairs.

Springs has $2 million in its separate capital reserve fund. In May, voters in Springs rejected a proposal to spend all or most of that on a new parking lot, a reconfigured drop-off and pickup loop, and other physical changes to the campus.