Settlement reached in Su Valley school replacement

PALMER — It seems the dust has settled and, in the end, the Mat-Su Borough got its newest high school for the shockingly low price of $1.8 million.

Su Valley Jr./Sr. High School burned to the ground in June 2007. This semester marks the first that classes have been held in the new building just off the Parks Highway in the borough’s northernmost reaches. The total cost of rebuilding the school came out to about $27 million.

Since almost the moment the embers cooled, the borough has been negotiating with its insurance company to hammer out just how much the carrier was willing to pay. Those negotiations were held mostly behind closed doors. What little information trickled out seemed to indicate the borough was disputing the insurance company’s offered payment.

But at a borough assembly meeting earlier this month, Borough Manager John Duffy said the negotiations had turned out better than he’d hoped.

Assemblywoman Cindy Bettine asked him what the shortfall was from the insurance payments. The answer — $6,272,282.55. The state, he said, has agreed to pick up 70 percent of that, which brings the borough’s contribution to the project to something on the order of $1.8 million.

“That’s better than we thought,” Bettine noted.

“We were thinking it was right around $2 million, so this is good,” Duffy replied.

He said the $1.8 million figure is a bit rough. The borough and its insurance carrier are still working out some of the specifics. And there are some things — the concrete slab for instance — that the insurance company didn’t pay for.

He also said, contrary to what some in the community seem to believe, to some degree the money actually replaces grant money the state gave the borough.

“There’s some confusion out there about how the funds are used. Some people think the insurance funds are added onto the grant that the state approved years ago which is not the case,” Duffy said.

An ordinance set to go before the assembly April 6 will make up for the difference using money leftover from the project to replace the school’s roof — a project that was ongoing when the school burned — and money from the borough’s school site selection fund. That account contains money set aside to buy land on which to build new schools.

Meanwhile, up in Sunshine, few people probably notice that the school hasn’t been paid for yet. It’s been up and running for months now and recently held a basketball tournament and a ski competition, both of which, Duffy wrote in his most recent manager’s report, drew crowds of more than 300 people.

“The school is quickly becoming an icon for the Upper Valley, supporting numerous types of activities and providing meeting space for a diverse variety of groups,” Duffy wrote.

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.