By Linda Conner Lambeck
WESTPORT–The $32 million renovation of Coleytown Middle School was completed more than four years ago but the school board, acting on a request of town officials, gave the authorization needed on Thursday to collect an additional $2.1 million from the state on the project.
“We don’t get to hear that a lot,” School Board Chair Lee Goldstein said before the unanimous vote with six members present at a meeting. “This is great and the money’s great.”
The action means the state reimbursement on the project will go up from 14 to 21 percent, giving the town a final reimbursement grant of $6.82 million.
Most of the work on the renovation project ended in 2021. The building was accepted as “complete” in January 2022. The state reimbursement process, however, took longer than anticipated due to the state’s ability to review change orders and some items were deemed ineligible, according to Representative Town Meeting Member Jay Keenan and Selectman Donald O’Day, who were chairs of Coleytown Building Committee.
O’Day called it a rare occurrence for state decisions to change.
“What we did was apply for a space standard waiver,” O’Day said. “We all worked to get this and it was approved. We were all very happy about that.”
The reimbursed money goes to the town, which paid for much of the project with bond money.
Goldstein credited both the committee and State Rep. Dominique Johnson, D-143 with helping get the space waiver.
“It’s a very complicated process and (Johnson) really helped us with that,” Goldstein said.
“This was a yeomen’s task.”
Coleytown Middle was closed abruptly in 2018 after mold was discovered and remediation efforts failed. The school’s population was merged into Bedford Middle School while extensive renovations were undertaken.
While this is certainly good news, the way it’s presented is a bit misleading. The state approved $6.8 million for the Coleytown project more than five years ago. This is not additional funding—it is reimbursement for money Westport had already advanced for the project.
Of course, it’s good news that Westport did not end up losing $2.1 million of that $6.8 million. But describing this as a new “approval” makes it sound as though the state just awarded Westport an additional $2.1 million. Nope. We’re simply getting back money that was already approved and that Westport had already spent.
Is Westport now done collecting the full $6.82 million grant originally approved for the project?