Juneau School District is on a tight budget but still needs to keep up with everyday building needs at its individual schools.
The district has to hold off on expensive updates because two years ago, the state stopped helping with school construction costs.
Mendenhall River Community School is only one of the schools asking to get a remodel.
The district replaced the roof almost 20 years ago, but officials said the building’s interior — with its turquoise walls and bright red carpets, original to the 33-year-old building — was never renovated.
Mendenhall River Principal Kristy Dillingham has a list of the changes she wants.
“Feel how heavy this door is,” Dillingham said. “You really have to push hard and put your weight into the door to get it open,”
Dillingham stood inside two sets of doors that lead to Mendenhall River’s playground. You have to open the outer doors first, and then there’s another set of doors after those.
Imagine trying to open these doors in a wheelchair or while leaning on a walker. Dillingham wants to make it easier.
She said, “so as we have multiple students in wheelchairs here come into school that they can easily access the school without waiting for people to hold open multiple layers of doors for them to get into the building.”
She wants to give them buttons that open the doors automatically.
Next, she showed me where the kids eat — the gym.
“Our gym floor has a crack in it, where you can feel the sub-floor below,” Dillingham said. “Our lighting in the gym hum and make loud humming noises.”
Parents have complained that a pipe for the sprinkler system in one room burst and started spraying water twice.
“We have plumbing issues in our bathrooms where once or twice a week we’re having to shut a bathroom down because toilets are overflowing,” Dillingham said.
But, the reality is big renovations that would address the doors, the gym floor, the plumbing problems, the carpet and everything else on Dillingham’s list are out of reach.
Dillingham couldn’t guess how much her wishlist would cost but in 2013, a team of engineers and architects from the CBJ and private firms recommended about $13.9 million in renovations for Mendenhall River.
Until 2015, the state paid local governments back for most of the money they borrowed from taxpayers to cover school construction costs.
David Means, the school district’s director of administrative services, said the state won’t do that again until 2020.
“If there’s a vote after October 2020, they would be eligible for (a) 50 percent reimbursement instead of the 60 to 70 percent reimbursement rate,” Means said.
If the City and Borough of Juneau voted to issue a bond to borrow money for Mendenhall River’s renovations, it would have to pay back the full amount.
Means said the CBJ is already stuck with an additional $3 million in bond debt it expected the state to cover before Gov. Bill Walker cut millions from the state’s budget with a veto last summer.
