UPDATE: Harford County Council Delays Plans for Havre de Grace High School Replacement
Amending Harford County Executive David Craig’s proposal to prioritize a $60 million replacement for Havre de Grace High School, the Harford County Council voted on Tuesday, May 15 to delay the start of funding for the project until fiscal year 2016. The county executive’s plan called for funding of the multi-year project to begin in fiscal year 2014. Stay tuned to The Dagger for further updates.
Harford County Executive David R. Craig has prioritized a future $60 million replacement of Havre de Grace High School, a project that was not requested by the Harford County Board of Education, and reordered other long term capital priorities set by the school board, as part of his proposed county budget for next year. The long term plans are part of Craig’s fiscal year 2013 budget proposal, which is currently under review by the Harford County Council. The Council may amend, but must enact a county budget before June 1, 2012.
Under Craig’s plan for future school projects, Havre de Grace High School shares top priority with a replacement school for Youth’s Benefit Elementary in Fallston. Youth’s Benefit is currently in the number two spot on the school board’s priority list. Under Craig’s proposal, funding would begin for both schools in fiscal year 2014 and would be completed in 2016.
By contrast, the top priority of the Harford County Board of Education has been a relocation of the John Archer School and a related replacement school for Homestead Wakefield Elementary in Bel Air. Craig’s plan drops that dual project down to the number two slot, behind Havre de Grace and Youth’s Benefit. Funding for the John Archer School/Homestead Wakefield Elementary project is set to begin in fiscal year 2016 under Craig’s plan.
William Paca/Old Post Road Elementary in Abingdon remains the third priority for modernization in the long term plans of both the county executive and the school board. Deteriorating conditions at Paca and Youth’s Benefit have been the subject of public comments made to the Harford County Board of Education in recent weeks.
None of the funding for the above projects is being requested for fiscal year 2013, however, long term projects spanning multiple years are included in a section of the county budget known as the “Six Year Capital Improvement Program” (CIP) and approved in the yearly budget process. Although subject to revision in later years, the CIP sets county budget priorities in future years, when and if funding becomes available.
No funding for major school replacement projects is requested in fiscal year 2013 by either the school board or the county executive, in part because funding for such projects isn’t expected to be available from either the county or the state.
So far, Harford County Public Schools isn’t picking a fight with Craig over their mismatched priorities for future projects. Questions posed to School Board President Leonard Wheeler and Superintendent Robert Tomback about potential changes to the school board’s own long term Capital Improvement Program garnered the following email from Teri Kranefeld, manager of communications for HCPS.
“Currently, the Board CIP priorities remain as printed in the FY 13 proposed budget document, the Board won’t begin deliberations on the FY14 CIP budget until June 2012. At this point, it would be premature to speculate on any potential reconciliations or decisions by the Board regarding the CIP.”
Adding a twist to those deliberations is a planned $1.25 million study of all county facilities that will result in a Countywide Facilities Master Plan. Cornell Brown, HCPS assistant superintendent for operations, has estimated that the study will take at least a year and a half to complete. The plan will be used by county government and related agencies such as schools and libraries, to prioritize future spending on infrastructure.
At a May 7 Board business meeting, Brown noted that the school board had put changes to their own long term capital priorities on hold, pending the results of the countywide study.
At the same meeting, School Board Member Bob Frisch representing Edgewood/Joppatowne, expressed concern about Craig’s proposal for Havre de Grace before the countywide study is completed. “The county executive is, in essence, setting the agenda for us,” Frisch said.
Craig told The Dagger that the study will not affect his priorities for Havre de Grace, Youth’s Benefit, John Archer/Homestead Wakefield or William Paca/Old Post Road.
Shifting school board priorities also isn’t new, Craig said, citing as examples Edgewood and Bel Air high schools, which he said he moved up on the school board’s priority list, along with an expansion of Aberdeen High School.
The next high school up for major capital improvement on the school board’s long term priority list is Joppatowne, with the initial planning phase scheduled for fiscal year 2018 and occupancy set for fiscal year 2021.
Justifying the Havre de Grace project, Craig said that it is the oldest high school in Harford County and the only one never scheduled for renovation.
While Craig can’t run for re-election in 2014 due to term limits, he is raising money for a 2014 campaign, rumored to be for a bid for governor. Craig is also a native of Havre de Grace and once served as mayor of the city.
If the Harford County Council approves Craig’s capital plan for schools, funding for future projects beginning in fiscal 2014 is far from assured. And while the school board has shifted its own long term capital budget priorities in the past, most recently in June 2011, school board approval will still be needed before any of the proposed projects can become a reality.
$60 mil for a new HdG High? Didn’t Bel Air and Patterson Mill come in under $40 mil each? Don’t both of these schools also have much larger student populations than HdG? C’mon David, we know HdG is your baby, but let’s get real.
it’s such his baby that he upgraded every school in the county before HDG
Why is the county spending 1.25 million dollars to have someone else do a long-term study of the county facilities and develop a master plan? If the multiple six-figure salary employees of the county can’t even evaluate their own facilities, then perhaps they shouldn’t have those jobs/salaries. Further, if the study is not going to impact decision-making regardless (as Craig clearly stated) then that’s 1.25 million dollars flushed right down the toilet anyways.
Ridiculous.
Absolutely agree!
I’ll say it if no one else will. He’s behaving like your worst fears of an out of control politician. Nothing like deciding to spend money that you were not asked to spend. Congress does this all the time. They did it in the 70s when they bought additional A-7 attack planes from LTV, even though the Navy didn’t want them and they are doing it today by restoring Global Hawk monies that the DoD said they didn’t want.
“I left”, While I agree with your statement, I believe the proper usage would be “anyway”, not “anyways” (damn, I’m picky!) 🙂
In 2011, the CE requested the county wide survey, and used that basis to remove YBES, WPOPRES, HWES, JA to be removed from the BoE’s list, and then conveniently in 2012 put HdG – which the BoE did not request in front.
The CE has used his skills to magically make his pet project reality, and for the cost of replacing both William Paca and Youths Benefit, schools in dire need of replacement, is building a school no one – so far – asked for. There is no doubt that HdG HS is an older school with its problems, but if the CE really wanted to show some objectivity, he would either let the BoE decide what they need or at least let the survey report on its findings.
The YBES/WPOPRES budgets added up to $75 million in previous BoE budgets(outyear budget), if you add $8 million savings from not installing AC systems that will be thrown away, and the reduced cost of school construction, the county could replace both schools…This does not count for the long term negative health and educational impacts on the smallest of Harford County’s students – all something we will pay for long after the CE has left. We need to stop playing politics with the lives of children!
“Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive.”
C.S. Lewis
Mr. Craig, nice, you don’t disappoint us, you act as we expect.
What was the purpose of having an elected hybrid school board if they can’t exercise the will of the people who elected them?
Proud,
We’ve sparred in the past and I think we will again, but you have this spot-on. Though, I extend that observation to the General Assembly and Congress also…
No doubt the co ex’s shift in priorities has nothing to do with the fact that he lives in HdG right?
UPDATE: Harford County Council Delays Plans for Havre de Grace High School Replacement
Amending Harford County Executive David Craig’s proposal to prioritize a $60 million replacement for Havre de Grace High School, the Harford County Council voted on Tuesday, May 15 to delay the start of funding for the project until fiscal year 2016. The county executive’s plan called for funding of the multi-year project to begin in fiscal year 2014. Stay tuned to The Dagger for further updates.
Just finished watching the rerun of the co council meeting from last night. The council was not very kind to the co exec especially the council pres. HDG hs construction money removed, fire/ems executive order voted down, trash transfer station funding cut, and some not so nice berating about the co exec overstepping his authority. Comments about checks and balances and that we gave up the monarchy 250 years ago were real scorchers.
The Aegis (online version) is reporting that the County Executive is ‘threatening not to fund any school projects for the next three years, if the HHS funding and his other school priorities aren’t left intact.’ The opposition will certainly use this to bludgeon Mr. Graig if he actually runs for governor, and if he follows through on this threat he probably won’t even win Harford County. This is not the way to lead. Didn’t we just see O’Malley, Miller, and Busch play petty politics in Annapolis when they didn’t get their way at the end of the regular session? I expect more and right now I am not seeing it from Mr. Graig. It would be nice to have a new high school in Havre de Grace just as it would be to have new schools for the Youths Benefit, Wm. Paca, Darlington, and John Archer communities, but holding school projects hostage because you didn’t get what you wanted from the County Council is the wrong way to go. Not only does it cast Mr. Graig as being petty but also as vindictive which is not a quality most want to see from their elected leaders. Recent actions by Mr Graig are raising concerns not only on the council but also among the voters.
Craig not Graig. However, if that is indeed correct, I would think it would finish him politically speaking. I hope it is not true. I would be very disappointed.