The Elmhurst Community Unit School District 205 School Board on Thursday morning approved an emergency expenditure of funds to move forward with construction at the new site of its transition program.

The board held a special meeting at 8:30 a.m. to vote on, and ultimately unanimously approve, construction and renovation needed at the leased space at 324 N. York St. The district will use James McHugh Construction Co. for the project.

“The emergency condition is because the ... indicated timeline to be done would have exceeded the timeline (of the beginning of the school year) by three weeks,” Superintendent Lynn Krizic said.

The district must put any projects at the site costing more than $25,000 out to bid. However, most of the items to be done at the property to ready it for the academic year will cost less than that.
The two-year-old program for 18- to 21-year-old students will move into the space at the beginning of the 2009-10 school year. The program was supposed to go into the building at 162 S. York St., where the administration will be housed, but plans fell through after officials learned the program had grown to large.

Additionally, lawyers advised the district that the amount of time the students would spend in the space was not allowed and therefore would have to go to referendum, which would not be able to be done until March 2010.

“We’re moving quickly but moving very thoroughly,” Krizic said. “We have had legal review on this. We’re really well on target.”

Board President Peggy Ostojic said any delay would not bode well with the tight deadline.
Krizic said the district will not have to pay rent on the facility for the first three months of its lease because of parking lot work that will be done on the property. This is an approximate savings of $15,000, she said.

Board member Susan DeRonne asked where the funding for the construction of the new location would come from. Krizic said one option would be to use money left over in one of the district’s general funds. Another option is to wait to see how much money will be given to the district from The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and use some of those funds, Krizic said. The third option is to use money from both.

Fellow board member Deborah O’Keefe Conroy cautioned that she hoped the stimulus funds would not go all of the district’s special education programs, not just the transition programs.

Krizic said any money received would be distributed throughout the special education programs