EAST PROVIDENCE — The state’s School Buildings Task Force voted its unanimous approval to a set of recommendations that encompass $500 million in spending to renovate and repair crumbling schools across Rhode Island.
The panel’s vote trailed Tuesday’s release of a report that found that the state’s 306 schools need $2.2 billion worth of repairs.
“This is just the beginning of an extended process,” Rhode Island Education Commissioner Ken Wagner said before the vote.
The report of the task force, which will be forwarded to Gov. Gina Raimondo, recommends spending almost half of the total debt that the task force says the state is capable of taking on over the next ten years. That total is $1.2 billion.
Wagner and the other panel co-chair, Rhode Island General Treasurer Seth Magaziner, are lobbying for “a once-in-a-generation investment” in public school buildings.
The task force also recommends a system of bonuses to prod cities and towns to undertake schools repairs that meet goals such as ensuring that buildings meet a minimum standard of “warm, safe and dry” and improving facility offerings in classrooms that teach science, technology, engineering, arts and math along with career and technical education.
The task force, a panel of 19 members, convened in the library of East Providence High School — a building that has functioned with the same plumbing pipes since 1952.
“I believe the students in East Providence deserve a new high school,” said East Providence’s schools Supt. Kathryn Crowley.
Crowley and the district’s facilities chief, Anthony Feola, both talked at length about an expensive, inefficient campaign that is required to keep the massive school building warm and safe. Feola took all task force members on a tour of the bowels of the building, where he showed them that the concrete pillars supporting the first floor are crumbling.
In the boiler room, he talked about the miles of pipe that the school’s heating system relies on. During a midwinter cold snap monitoring pipes and equipment for problems, such as steam leaks, is a 24-hour round the clock job.
East Providence has set out to develop a proposal for building a new high school, Feola said. The district aims to seek voter approval next year to borrow money through a local bond issue.
The financing of the project would be aided greatly by the program proposed by the task force, Crowley said, adding that the scope of such bond initiatives is limited in local towns and cities.
"This process will help our building project move forward," Crowley said.