{"id":34388,"date":"2021-12-02T05:30:31","date_gmt":"2021-12-02T11:30:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/?p=34388"},"modified":"2021-12-01T12:01:07","modified_gmt":"2021-12-01T18:01:07","slug":"its-like-wpa-money-how-federal-covid-19-relief-funds-are-helping-schools-make-infrastructure-improvements","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/2021\/12\/02\/its-like-wpa-money-how-federal-covid-19-relief-funds-are-helping-schools-make-infrastructure-improvements\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018It&#8217;s like WPA Money\u2019: How federal COVID-19 relief funds are helping schools make infrastructure improvements"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_34390\"  class=\"wp-caption module image aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 672px;\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-34390\" src=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2021\/12\/IMG_7321-672x504.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"672\" height=\"504\" srcset=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2021\/12\/IMG_7321-672x504.jpeg 672w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2021\/12\/IMG_7321-1920x1440.jpeg 1920w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2021\/12\/IMG_7321-768x576.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2021\/12\/IMG_7321-1536x1152.jpeg 1536w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2021\/12\/IMG_7321-2048x1536.jpeg 2048w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2021\/12\/IMG_7321-150x113.jpeg 150w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2021\/12\/IMG_7321-300x225.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2021\/12\/IMG_7321-620x465.jpeg 620w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2021\/12\/IMG_7321-1440x1080.jpeg 1440w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 672px) 100vw, 672px\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Bret Smith, recently retired executive director of facilities. Smith helped plan for a bond issue voted on by Ponca City residents in October.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div style=\"width: 100%; height: 200px; margin-bottom: 20px; border-radius: 6px; overflow: hidden;\"><iframe style=\"width: 100%; height: 200px;\" src=\"https:\/\/player.captivate.fm\/episode\/c27fe71e-34fd-4d2c-bc97-12857ffe9a31\" frameborder=\"no\" scrolling=\"no\" seamless=\"\"><\/iframe><\/div><p>Ponca City High School has gone through dozens of renovations and changes over the years.<\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Bret Smith has been there for many of them. Smith recently retired as executive director of facilities after a decades long career.\u00a0<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But before he left, he oversaw the plans for a new massive project that leveraged almost $10 million in federal relief funds to improve the infrastructure at Ponca City High School.<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cIt&#8217;s expensive stuff,\u201d he said. \u201cIt&#8217;s not something the public sees, it&#8217;s all internal, it&#8217;s on the roof, you know, so it&#8217;s not real sexy, but it&#8217;s very, very necessary.\u201d<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Federal relief money for the coronavirus has injected more than $1 billion dollars into Oklahoma\u2019s public schools. In many places, like Ponca City, it\u2019s giving schools a chance to catch up on much needed infrastructure improvements.<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Between the CARES Act and American Rescue Plan, more than $1.4 billion dollars went to Oklahoma schools earlier this year. And that\u2019s needed big time in some school buildings that are really lacking.<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cWe&#8217;re not in dire straits like some school districts are \u2014 that may not even have air conditioning period, but we need to get caught back up again,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Public funding for schools can be like riding a roller coaster. So, Ponca City was going to take full advantage of whatever came in. Superintendent Shelly Arrott says the CARES Act offers an historic opportunity.<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cWe&#8217;re in a unique position that we can do some one time generational projects for kids that not only our kids but their grandkids can utilize,\u201d Arrott said. \u201cI mean, it&#8217;s like WPA Money in the Great Depression.\u201d<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That means making a slew of upgrades to the school. The district will be making much needed updates to those HVAC systems that visitors don\u2019t see, new windows and floors will all be funded by the federal relief money because state and local tax money in what\u2019s commonly called the district\u2019s building fund is inadequate.<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In Ponca City, the school district took the $10 million it spent in federal funds that\u2019s being used to make infrastructure repairs to build support for an almost $50 million bond issue to make more exciting and <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.pcps.us\/UserFiles\/Servers\/Server_32320859\/File\/District%20Main\/PCPS%20Bond%202021%20pdf.pdf\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">visible improvements to district facilities<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. Local chamber of commerce president Rich Cantillion was one of the biggest advocates for the bond measure, and he wasn\u2019t surprised that more than <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.pcps.us\/cms\/one.aspx?portalId=32320943&pageId=32320958\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">80 percent of voters<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> in Ponca City approved it.\u00a0<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Cantillion said Ponca City voters have a lot of pride in their schools and the district draws families to live in the area. But the leveraging of the CARES Act funds was incredibly important.<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cThat was a big selling point,\u201d he said. \u201cBecause&#8230; our whole talk when we would go out and talk about voting \u2018yes\u2019, was we have a golden opportunity right now with our CARES money and what we can do.\u201d<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The district will use the bond money to fund major renovations to sports facilities, it\u2019s massive performance hall and build a new STEM lab in the school. Smith, the former executive director of facilities said the federal relief money also reduced the burden on taxpayers.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Superintendent Arrott said that was important in the appeal to voters, and those types of projects wouldn\u2019t have been possible without first taking care of important infrastructure needs across the district made possible by federal COVID relief money.<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cDo I like how we received it? No,\u201d she said. \u201cI wish we hadn&#8217;t gone into a global pandemic, but our kids suffered. So this is a way to help them recover. And it&#8217;s not going to be an overnight recovery.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ponca City High School has gone through dozens of renovations and changes over the years.Bret Smith has been there for many of them. Smith recently retired as executive director of facilities after a decades long career.\u00a0But before he left, he oversaw the plans for a new massive project that leveraged almost $10 million in federal [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":209,"featured_media":34389,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[492,17,23],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34388"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/209"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34388"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34388\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34392,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34388\/revisions\/34392"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34389"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}