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CAROLINE COUNTY – At a Board of Education meeting that coincidentally coincided with the first day of school for Caroline County, the BOE approved the Capital Improvement Program (CIP) for fiscal year 2027 (FY27). The plan, which focuses heavily on funds for the new Northern-county middle school, was presented by CCPS’s Director of Operations, Bill Mengel.
Mengel explained the importance of the CIP process: “The CIP is required by the Interagency Commission for School Construction (IAC) to be updated and approved annually by all Boards of Education.” Once the Board approves the plan, it is then submitted to Caroline’s County Commissioners “for their acceptance and support.”
The CIP serves as a roadmap for future capital improvements and includes projects across multiple fiscal years. The current plan is dominated by one project in particular: the construction of a new middle school on property behind North Caroline High School. Mengel said the goal is to complete the new school by June of 2029 and have it open for the 2029–2030 academic year. “It’s an aggressive timeline, but that’s been the plan since day one,” he said.
Beyond the middle school project, two other items are included at the tail end of the plan. In fiscal years 2030 and 2031, the school system intends to replace wastewater treatment plants at the Colonel Richardson campus and the North Caroline High School campus. Both facilities were built in 1968 and are now 57 years old. Mengel said the treatment plants are “not as expensive as I thought they were going to be…If we have to wait five years, I can’t guarantee this number is going to hold, but it’s approximately $1.3 million.”
Mengel said he is working to convince the state to see the value in replacing the plants sooner rather than later. He hopes to combine the wastewater treatment upgrades with the middle school project and move the Colonel Richardson replacement up to FY30. “We’ll be saving money, it’s definitely worth the investment, I just don’t know if the state thinks the way I think,” he said.
Over the course of FY27 through FY31, Mengel said the state share of capital costs is expected to total about $78 million, while the local share would be around $25 million. However, Mengel emphasized that the cost estimates of the middle school building remain fluid. “I do want to note that these figures are not chiseled in stone yet. There’s still a lot of details that have to be worked out,” he said.
For FY27 specifically, the request is for planning funds. “For the FY27 CIP, we’ll be asking for state planning approval in the form of architectural engineering design and planning funds to the tune of $6.8 million. The state share of that would be $5.3 million, local share would be $1.4 million. Upon state approval for this project, beginning in FY28, we will begin requesting larger amounts of funding for the actual build,” Mengel said.
Mengel noted that future costs are “somewhat speculative at this point,” and more clarity is expected in the Spring of 2026 once the state approves the project and the school’s design is finalized. For now, Mengel anticipates requesting $41 million in FY28 and $51 million in FY29 for construction, but those figures may shift as design work proceeds. “Those numbers will change a little bit as we dial down on what the engineering designs are going to be for the build,” Mengel said. Each of those figures includes both state and local funds.
Superintendent Dr. Derek Simmons acknowledged the shock some might feel when reviewing the local cost estimates. “The number for the local share looks high, that’s because it is,” Simmons said. At the July 1 BOE meeting, the Educational Specifications team presented its rough outline for what the new middle school will entail, including more classroom space than the state formula allows. The state calculates classroom needs using a student-to-teacher ratio of 25 to 1, but Caroline County prefers a 17 to 1 ratio to better meet both academic and behavioral needs. In short, the current specifications call for more square footage than what the state believes is necessary.
“We will spend the next several months, possibly a year, going back and forth justifying our ask and then them hopefully changing their stance and meeting us somewhere in the middle,” Simmons said. “Anything that we ask for above what the state is saying we need becomes 100% local cost. So that’s why the number is higher, because we literally can’t start that process till this goes in.” He added that a similar process occurred with the construction of Greensboro Elementary School. “That final number won’t be locked in until at least next year,” he said, “So if anyone’s getting sticker shock locally, this is not where it will wind up.”
The Board voted to accept and approve the FY27 CIP, which will now be submitted to the County Commissioners for review.
