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Dan Elliot,

From that $25 million issuance, the WPS has spent $10-12 million dollars (it may even be closer to $15 million) for state-mandated Fire code improvements. Further, Mr. Corley admitted that the City and Schools do not use the same acounting systems which make it difficult for him to match up what he;s looking at. He's also said publcly that he's learning the budgeraty systems. That said, of the $8 million you reference, $4.8 is "parked" to be used or the Vets HVAC system. That's leaves $3.2, which is what was used last summer for the Pilgrim & Vets auditoriums, Pilgrim football field, Pilgrim & TG tracks etc. Most of that $8 million did not go to "other things" The engineering studies discussed pertained to the Vets elevator and the Vets HVAC as part of the discussions about those projects. Regarding SMMA, they were vetted publicy during the RFP process for the hiring of the consutant for consoilidation. They were then vetted again when the RFP went out for the architectural firm to oversee the projects and their bid came lower than the two other bidders. In issues like this the firm usually gets a % of the project's value - that's just standard operating procedure. The notion that the WPS can't estimate capital projects or undertake them, play 'shell games' with bond monies and otherwise mismanage their funding is patently false, in my opinion. You're correct, the Vets system, and all these other projects, should have been done decdes ago - but they weren't. The people responsible for that are long gone. The people here now are moving to deal with these issues and yet it appears that we want to deny them the actual funding to do them. Again, I'd simply remind everyone that over the last 8 years the schools have been level funded by the city while the city's side of the budget has increased by nearly $50 million AND a few of the recent city budgets have had to tap the rainy day fund in order to achieve balance - which means they were in a deficit before they even started!. None of that is because of school spending.