Five Year Capital Facilities Plan

Mr. Pierorazio Briefs Governor Spitzer's Staff About District Facilities Needs

To keep the educational agenda of the Yonkers Public Schools in the forefront of the New York State Legislature and Governor Eliot Spitzer during the 2007-2008 Budget Process, Bernard P. Pierorazio, Superintendent of Schools, today met with state officials to plead the case for special legislation funding to bring the school buildings in the City of Yonkers into compliance with State Education Department and Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) codes. In what has become an almost biweekly visit to Albany, the Big Five Schools superintendents – Buffalo, New York, Rochester, Syracuse and Yonkers – inform the decision-makers about the unique needs of city school districts.

In meetings today with the Governor’s Deputy Secretary for Education Manny Rivera, Superintendent Pierorazio articulated Yonkers’ need for increased funding through the Foundation Formula as well as a significant infusion of dollars for Capital Improvement projects. Superintendent Pierorazio distributed a report that was completed for the Yonkers Public Schools District in July 2006 which details the results of a Building Condition Survey and a Five Year Capital Plan. “It details the decay of an enormous, aging physical infrastructure,” wrote Pierorazio in correspondence delivered today to the Governor and all of Yonkers’ representatives in Albany. The district’s, “thirty-nine buildings, which average seventy years in age and cover 3.8 million square feet, are desperately in need of the most basic repair in order to maintain the continued health, safety and welfare of our children and their teachers.” The report is available here.

Superintendent Pierorazio reported that among the items noted as unsatisfactory in the Building Condition Survey are environmental and structural issues such as heating and ventilation, fuel systems, building envelope, and roofing and facades. “The cost to remediate these items is projected at $294,800,000,” stated Pierorazio. Assuming all the items in the plan were addressed, none of the buildings would be brought up to current State Education Department code for instructional space, nor would this plan bring any building into ADA compliance. This plan does not include any student capacity issues or any programmatic improvements, which are currently being assessed as part of an ongoing long range educational facilities plan.