Fate of the Future replacement for PRMS still in the hands of the province

Still standing close to ten years after the topic of replacement
facility was discussed, PRMS made for a short topic of discussion
at last week's SD52 Budget meeting

Perhaps sideswiped by the revelation of another 800 thousand dollar budget deficit in 2022 for SD52, was some news from last week on the path ahead for the replacement of Prince Rupert Middle School.

The long delayed replacement project made for a short overview as part of the early portion of the hour and a half presentation for the School Board on May 5th.

The update came from Secretary-Treasurer Cameron McIntyre who spoke to the topic in response to a question from Trustee Bart Kuntz, who had inquired about the cost of consultants and such related to the proposed new facility, asking what his view was of the status for the PRMS build and the current process.

In reply, Mr. McIntyre outlined some of the background on the proposed build to this point.

"The effect of the Middle School and the accumulated historical consultation cost is a little over a million which the Ministry would reimburse us once the project is approved. That would be available for the Board to make decisions, primarily I think it would have to go into capital projects that would be there."

The Old Kanata School was demolished in 2020, any
potential sale of the property is now on hold pending
a decision on where the new Middle School will be built

Mr. Kuntz also asked about the status of the Kanata school land and what could be the impact for the District if they could get that property back on the real estate market.

Towards that theme, the Secretary Treasurer observed as to how the Kanata property was currently tied into the PRMS decision.

"Kanata is not currently on the market, it's effectively where we have to wait until the project is approved and so once that project is approved we would be able to put that back on the market"

Mr. Kuntz then asked for some additional  clarification when it came to the situation related to Kanata.

"Well Kanata was one of the potential sites for the Middle School and the Ministry wants us just to leave it there in case Treasury Board makes some decision that we're not expecting. So when they give us the final full on approval ... and yes it's going to sit beside the existing school then we'll be free to put it back on the market"

Trustee Janet Beil also had questions on the total value of the consulting fees for the project and observed of the need for more clarity on the situation.

"I think we as a Board need more clarity on how much we're spending on this project and uh, I dunno we've been on the Board a long time all of us and we're still not any further ahead so I guess really getting alarmed about the cost and no action on this"

Trustee James Horne also offered some thoughts to the topic. 

"Your number is a million and a bit of what we've already spent on the Middle School, what's our forecast for the coming year"

Mr. McIntyre noted the current financial status of the project and offered up short synopsis of what's ahead for it.

"Well the Board approved an additional hundred and fifty thousand as one time money for this year, we've not spent all of that at this point. Later on in my presentation I was just going to explain that I don't expect the need to have a budget in the next year. But whatever is unspent of that money I'd get the Board to reserve just if we're not quite done by the end of June. We're forecast to be done pretty close by the end of June to do what we have to do. We would just reserve any of that that's left over for anything that carries over past the end of June"

Mr. Horne had one final question asking if at this point if the Secretary Treasurer foresaw any need for any increase to the amount already allocated.

To that, Mr. McIntyre observed that he did not see the need for any more money right now.

The full back and forth of the discussion can be reviewed from the SD52 video of the session starting at the 30 minute mark.

The School Board members have not really offered up much of an overview of the process through this school year as part of their public sessions,  with little to no mention of the project that originally was proposed back when they consolidated schools with a number of community school closures in 2008.

The Board made its first substantial kick at the replacement can almost ten years ago when they formally announced plans to seek replacement of the Middle School.

Considering the lengthy amount of time it has taken to move the PRMS question forward, there clearly is a need that the School Board membership should provide more information for the public and indicate some kind of timeline as to when there may be some progress towards it.

The last time that the PRMS project received a mention was in March of 2021 following a land sale between the School District and the City for land adjacent to the current site of the Middle School.

As a bit of refresher course for everyone with an interest in the long running saga of the PRMS replacement, we provided somewhat of an archive of past notes to the topic back in February of 2020.

For more notes on Education in the northwest see our archive page here.