By ROBERT LINNEHAN
The Cherry Hill Sun
After more than six months of waiting, the Cherry Hill School District received several grants from the state to fund two general improvement projects at Beck Middle School. The district will receive more than $1 million in funding from the New Jersey Schools Development Authority.
More than 100 schools in the state received Regular Operating District grant funding through the program. The grants were made available from the sale of $500 million in bonds by the New Jersey Economic Development Authority.
Public Information Officer Susan Bastnagel said the district received two separate grants for two separate improvement projects at Henry C. Beck Middle School. The first project is an $802,200 roof restoration project at the decades-old school.
It’s an entire resurfacing of the roof, Bastnagel said, not a complete roof replacement. The project involves removal of the existing roofing system and provision of new expansion joints, roof covering and flashing, according to the district.
The grant was awarded for $320,880, she said, and the district will be responsible for the remaining $481,320 of the project.
The second project is a heating, ventilating and air conditioning system replacement plan which will see three of the multi-zone rooftop units replaced with new models.
These three HVAC units serve the core building at the middle school, Bastnagel reported.
The total cost for the HVAC replacement is $724,024, of which the state will pay $289,610.
The district has been planning both of these capital projects since the end of the last year, Bastnagel said, and was just waiting for confirmation from the state in regard to the grant funding.
“We had the paperwork in with the state for a long time. The one project is a roof restoration at Beck, and they were both in the capital outlay budget,” she said. “We had to wait for approval from grants from the state.”
Bastnagel said paperwork for the grants was filed last December. The district was notified of the grant award two weeks ago.
Now that the grant has been executed, the projects will be put out for bid, according to James Devereaux, assistant superintendent of business.
Work will begin this summer, but may continue into the fall.
The state-funded grants represent at least 40 percent of eligible costs for projects in the
RODs, addressing health-and-safety issues, student overcrowding and other critical needs, according to the NJ SDA.
