Leonardtown Middle renovation on hold

School project delayed; jail moving forward

Friday, Dec. 25, 2009

Several county projects were pushed back at the St. Mary's County commissioners' budget session on Tuesday, including the renovation of Leonardtown Middle School.

Plans to expand the county jail are moving ahead on schedule, but some of the county's long-range building plans can't move ahead without consent from the General Assembly to borrow $25 million from the bond market. Southern Maryland legislators have said they won't grant that.

"We needed that bond authority in order to implement the original plan," said Elaine Kramer, chief financial officer for county government.

The renovation of Leonardtown Middle School, opened in 1975, was scheduled for fiscal 2011 and 2012, but is now pushed back two years. Superintendent Michael Martirano asked the commissioners to leave the project where it is in county plans because if it is moved out, it could jeopardize state funding. The state has already awarded $9 million for the $17 million project and the board of education is trying to get another $1.1 million.

Commissioner Larry Jarboe (R) asked if it was possible for the board of education to use its leftover operating funds for the building budget. Martirano said that would have to be discussed between the school board and county commissioners.

Some money was pushed back for the FDR Boulevard project, but there is still $1.35 million planned to buy land between Route 4 and Great Mills Road, and there is enough money to design FDR Boulevard to Chancellor's Run Road.

There is also $750,000 to build FDR Boulevard between Great Mills Road and South Shangri-La Drive.

The county's long-term transportation plan calls for FDR Boulevard to run from Wildewood to Willows Road in Lexington Park as a neighborhood connector road, not a high-speed thoroughfare.

Funds were moved in the capital budget plan for a trash transfer station at St. Andrew's landfill in California.

There is $1.3 million in fiscal 2012 to pour an asphalt slab for the transfer station. The money for the rest of it is in fiscal 2015.

Commissioner Thomas A. Mattingly Sr. (D) said he didn't see the need to fund the project at all since the county ditched its plans to build it.

Running the trash transfer station would have required large subsidies from the operating budget.

The transfer station site has conditional-use approval that will eventually expire unless building on it begins.

Trash in St. Mary's County currently goes to Charles County and if other jurisdictions refuse to take local garbage, it would be a lot easier to put up a metal building on an existing slab, said George Erichsen, director of public works and transportation.

jbabcock@somdnews.com