Spencer School District Awarded FEMA Grant, Will Move Forward with Safe Room and Other Building Improvements
Thursday, May 14th, 2020 -- 8:52 AM
(WDLB) -The Spencer School District is getting its federal grant to build new and improved facilities which include safety and security enhancements, as well as space for new gymnasium, wrestling and weight room facilities.The U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Federal Emergency Management Agency, or “FEMA”, has allocated just over two-point-nine million dollars in Pre-Disaster Mitigation funds to the village of Spencer, for the construction of a safe room at Spencer High School. FEMA Region Five Regional Administrator James Joseph says the project will give the community a safe room that can be used to protect residents in Spencer during times of severe weather. FEMA will pay 90 percent of the total cost of the project, while the remaining 10 percent, or 325-thousand dollars, will be provided by the Spencer School District. The FEMA project is being coupled with a nearly six-million dollar building and remodeling project which voters approved in a referendum in April of 2019.
The five-point-nine-eight million dollar project will renovate the school building to improve safety and security, maintain, upgrade and equip facilities and construct and equip the addition to the school building for education, music and athletics. The referendum money will be used to relocate the elementary school office to provide a safe entry, renovate the family and consumer science room, which includes asbestos removal, create designated choir and handbell rooms, and construct a dome structure for new gymnasium, wrestling and weight room facilities. If the FEMA grant came through, construction was tentatively scheduled to start this spring.
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