CFAC Reports

Wake County Building Program: School Facilities

Public education in Wake County requires an increase of instructional space at a growth rate that tests the appetite of the populace for public debt and demands creative thinking about our school facilities. We as a community are challenged to review our systems of planning, locating, building, filling, and maintaining our public schools. The measure of our success in addressing this need is the vitality of the very institution—our public schools—that most affects the quality of public discourse, and whose health is crucial to our ability to continue attracting the employers and workers who sustain our decades of economic development.

In recognition of the importance of this process of review and deliberation, and following the suggestion by the Blue Ribbon Committee on the Future of Wake County, the Wake County Board of Commissioners and the Wake County Board of Education jointly appointed the Citizens Facilities Advisory Committee (“CFAC”) in June 2006 and charged it to examine the construction practices used by the county, beginning with those of the Wake County Public School System (WCPSS).

The committee met over the course of a year, learning about WCPSS’ school building programs, seeking community input, and discussing potential changes to current school construction practices. The committee and its subcommittees (Planning and Site Selection, Program and Design, and Project Delivery: Contracting and Construction Administration) met with subject matter experts and key staff to develop a base understanding of the WCPSS building program before formulating recommendations and reporting to the full committee. The report includes 27 recommendations in total, affirms certain current practices, and calls for further study in other areas.

View the School Facilities Report (.pdf)

Wake County Building Program: County Facilities

Starting in January 2008, the CFAC began its review of Wake County’s building program. The committee’s review of Wake County’s building program, excluding WCPSS, allowed the CFAC to receive an orientation to the County’s Community Improvement Plan (CIP) budget and financial process prior to delving into specific capital projects. The work plan provided the CFAC the opportunity to focus on CIP areas by topic area. The committee heard presentations regarding the implementation of Wake County’s Community Improvement Plan as well as specific presentations on county projects.

During summer 2008, the committee divided into subcommittees to conduct additional review and analysis and to make preliminary findings, affirmations, and recommendations. Those findings, affirmations, and recommendations were reviewed and discussed by the entire committee. Findings, affirmations, and recommendations that received the consensus of the committee are incorporated into this report.

The Report on the Wake County Building Program: County Facilities includes 37 findings, affirmations, and recommendations related to the County’s building program, excluding WCPSS construction. These findings, affirmations and recommendations are divided into two main sections: Implementation of the Community Improvement Plan and Discussion and Recommendations on Specific County Projects.

View the Report on the Wake County Building Program: County Facilities (.pdf)

Revised Construction Cost Analysis Report

At its August 2006 meeting, the Citizens' Facilities Advisory Committee engaged DeJong, Inc., with Summit Consulting Services, LLC, to conduct a construction cost analysis for the Wake County Public School System and seven other districts from within North Carolina and outside North Carolina with comparable population growth and demographics.

The following school districts participated in the study:

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, Charlotte, N.C.
Clark County Public Schools, Las Vegas, Nev.
Fairfax County Public Schools, Falls Church, Va.
Guilford County Schools, Greensboro, N.C.
Gwinnett County Public Schools, Suwanee, Ga.
Orange County Public Schools, Orlando, Fla.
Wake County Public Schools, Raleigh, N.C.
Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools, Winston-Salem, N.C.

The study reviewed new school construction costs. It contains information regarding school design, school construction methods and school construction costs. The study looked at facility model square footage and programmatic components, site development, building materials, and building systems. Data was gathered from comparison districts and "normalized" with time and location indexes to provide an "apples to apples" comparison.

The CFAC studied the initial report, released in January 2007, at its February and March meetings and indicated they wanted additional information included in the report, such as cost-per-student calculations and design capacities and square footages of the schools included in the cost-comparison portion of the study.

The construction-cost study shows the Wake County Public School System’s total project cost per square foot is higher than average for its elementary and high schools, and slightly lower than average for middle schools, when compared with similar school districts nationally.

Additionally, building-only costs were higher than average in Wake County for elementary, middle and high schools. Site-development costs per square foot were also higher than average for elementary ($30.10) and high schools ($29.24), but lower than average for middle schools ($14). The middle schools included in the study shared sites with elementary schools, which reduced their site development costs.

The updated study also shows higher construction costs per student; WCPSS had the highest cost per student for elementary, and the second highest cost per student for middle and high schools. However, design capacity is an area that is changing in Wake County, according to the study. Capacity in WCPSS schools built between 2000 and 2006 was below average in the number of students per school for elementary, middle and high schools. However, based on the latest planning assumptions, WCPSS aims to build schools that have approximately the same capacity as the other districts in the study:

WCPSS Future Schools

Slightly below the average capacity for elementary schools (72 fewer students)
Slightly above the average capacity for middle schools (34 more students)
Slightly above the average capacity for high schools (7 more students)

The updated report, in PDF format, is available here: Cost Analysis Report (.pdf)

There is a PDF appendix to the report, totaling approximately 350 pages. Due to the size of the file, we are unable to post the appendix to the CFAC Web page at this time. Requests for the appendix, on CD, can be made by calling 919-856-5480.