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GOWANDA -- The Gowanda Central School District is tired of waiting on New York state -- so tired, in fact, that it is paying to speed up the process.
After many months of waiting for a response from the State Education Department on its projects to renovate the district's pool and playground, the district has decided to purchase an expedited review of the playground project. The cost for the expedited review is tied to the cost of the project. The district estimated the cost is between $2,500 and $5,000, which Gowanda Business Administrator Barb Smith called "well worth the cost, in this case."
The district felt significant urgency to receive approval for the playground project due to the fact that the funding the district plans to allocate to the project expires June 30.
"We need to make sure we spend that money by June 30 or we're in trouble," said Smith.
NYSED is significantly short-staffed and projects like Gowanda's are "just sitting there," according to Smith. The district also noted the process of an expedited review will soon be made unavailable by NYSED.
Related to the other project in limbo, Board of Education President Max Graham raised the possibility of repairing the pool with funds the district has on hand, rather than waiting for the state to approve the project and reimburse the cost.
"Obviously, where we're at with SED, we're not making any headway," Graham said. "I don't think that members of the community are very pleased with that. I understand it's not the district's fault, it's SED -- but in the meantime, if it's a matter of a $30,000 or a $50,000 repair, is that something that we can look at?"
Members of the Board of Education also noted, however, that the difficulty in doing a repair now means the improvements would be undone by a full renovation in the future, like the district had planned.
Graham added, "It's already been well over a year. If it's going to be several more years before we get approval for it, can we get the pool fixed?"
"I'm all for it," Superintendent Robert Anderson said. "I'm sure you hear a lot about it, I hear about the pool all the time too. It would be wonderful to fix it to operate."
The district will look to confirm that repairing the pool will not require SED input.
Smith added, "I think at this point, with the fund balance that we have, we have to do something."