A legislative committee Wednesday gave its unanimous stamp of approval to the recommended list of 2013-14 grants from the Building Excellent Schools Today construction program.
The grants include $98.6 million in total costs for six large projects that are to be financed by lease-purchase agreements. Those include $64.1 million in state funds and $30.5 million in local matches. The projects are new PK-12 or K-12 schools in six small districts: Creede, Kim, Limon, Moffat 2, Haxtun and South Conejos.
Also approved were two alternate projects worth $47.6 million for a new middle school in Fort Morgan and a new building for the Ross Montessori Charter in Carbondale. Either or both of those projects will be considered for funding in November if any of the finalists forfeit their state grants because bond issue elections fail and those districts don’t raise their local matches.
The review marked the first time that the Capital Development Committee has been involved in the BEST process, as required by a law passed during the 2013 session. The panel can only approve or reject the whole list. The committee is a year-round House-Senate panel that oversees state construction projects of all kinds.
The lease-purchase agreements, plus a separate $15.7 million set of smaller, cash-funded projects not subject to legislative review, were recommended earlier by the state Capital Construction Assistance Board and the State Board of Education.
See the full lists and descriptions of lease-purchase projects here and the cash projects here.