Campbell River School District’s Board of Trustees approved the use of nearly $2.8 million in dedicated funding to complete seismic upgrades on Pinecrest Elementary School beginning later this summer.
The funds, earmarked by the Ministry of Education for infrastructure projects, represent money left over from School Districtr 72’s last seismic upgrade, at École Phoenix Middle School that came in under budget.
“The Ministry has approved in principal the remaining funds left over from the Phoenix seismic project to be used on Pinecrest,” said Kevin Patrick, SD72 secretary-treasurer.
“I believe some work has been done in the past (at Pinecrest), and these are sections remaining from the work that was done before.”
The bulk of the work at Phoenix was “substantially” completed two months ago, said Jennifer Patrick, SD72 communications director, and fair-weather work to be completed at the school this summer has already been paid for.
The ministry allots seismic upgrade funding throughout the province on a risk-based priority system.
But Campbell River has managed to leapfrog some higher-risk sites thanks to the work of its District staff, Patrick said.
“The readiness of our personnel — the manager of operations and staff — to have these projects ready has actually led to our lower-priority projects being funded before some of the higher-risk projects in the lower maninland,” he said.
“It’s because of the hard work and foresight our staff had to have these projects essentially shovel-ready and for us to have the guts to ask for the money and proceed with the project.”
Patrick said only Cortes Elementary remains on the district’s high-priority list.