School Board Seeks $820K for First Round of Osborn Hill School Cleanup

The Fairfield Board of Education will seek a supplemental appropriation of $820,613 from the town for a portion of the costs of PCB remediation at Osborn Hill School.

That figure covers remediation completed prior to the school opening in August, the cost of a temporary gymnasium, testing, the hiring of the consulting firm Woodard & Curran, and some projected testing, inspections, and cleanup.

"This is a cash-flow problem -- this is coming from our pockets," Superintendent of Schools Dr. David Title said.

Title told the board that he has been talking with First Selectman Michael Tetreau and Board of Finance Chair Tom Flynn and both "understand that we treated this as an emergency, and we avoided additional significant costs by opening school on time."

The $820,613 does not account for the remediation of the permanent gym, where the highest levels of PCBs were found over the summer, when mandatory hazardous materials testing began ahead of an upcoming window replacement project.

A long-term remediation plan for the gymnasium -- which must first be approved by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency -- will come forward as a capital project in conjunction with the window replacement, Title said.

"This has not been addressed," Title said. Only preliminary testing has been conducted in the gym so far.

The school system will not be proposing capital projects during the budget process this year, Title added. The district usually asks for about $1 million in capital improvements, but this year's planned projects can be factored into the 2013-2014 operating budget.

Basically all the schools' major projects were approved last year, "so we're in a lull," Title said.

Read more about the Osborn Hill School PCB situation:

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