CHARLESTON, W.Va. — The state School Building Authority was able to fund school construction, improvement, or renovation projects in a dozen West Virginia counties for 2024. The latest Needs Grants were announced Tuesday in Charleston.
The agency wound up dolling out $65 Million despite having $250 Million in funding requests.
The projects included new schools to be built in Monongalia, Putnam, Kanawha, and Berkeley Counties. Three of those were given an award which was spread out of multiple years.
“If we just looked at those four projects, that was over $74 Million in requests and everything would be eaten up. So the only way we could help our counties spread that money as much as we can is you have to multi-year those projects,” said Andy Neptune, the Executive Director of the SBA.
Kanawha County received $20 Million over the course of three years for the construction of a new consolidated middle school in eastern Kanawha County. Putnam County received a multi-year award of of $39.6 Million over three years for construction of a new Hurricane Middle School. Monongalia County will get $11.4 Million this year and another $5.5 Million in 2025 for a new Suncrest Middle School. The final new school construction awarded was in Berkeley County for a new Inwood Learning Center. Neptune said the Inwood project had already been approved in previous cycles, but studies indicated a need to expand the project even before construction started due to rapid growth in the area. The Authority approved an additional $4 Million for the project.
Also included in the awards was money for Technical School upgrades in Harrison and Monroe Counties. School safety upgrades are funded for Grant, Hardy, and Marion Counties. Logan and Pleasants Counties had projects approved to upgrade electrical systems.
The final awards were for renovations at Greenbrier and Harrison Counties.
“We touched a lot of different bases and some of the things our Delegates talk about a lot and we were able to provide funding for some of those,” he said.
Initially the SBA indicated they had about $45 Million dollars to allocate, but Neptune said that was a conservative estimate and after investments and other factors were considered, the amount was around $65 Million.
The money is from proceeds from West Virginia Lottery sales allocated each year to education in West Virginia by the Legislature.