Thanks to minimal maintenance expenses, the cost of running the new Clifton Hunter High School campus was well within budgeted guidelines during the first four months the school has been open, according to records provided by the Cayman Islands Ministry of Education in response to a Freedom of Information Law request.
Serving some 840 students, the roughly $100 million facility in the Frank Sound area of Grand Cayman cost just more than $600,000 to operate from September through December, the ministry reported. The budgeted amount for the time period was less than $740,000, meaning school operations were 18 per cent under budget, the ministry stated.
The information requested by the Caymanian Compass includes budgeted and actual monthly totals for electricity, water, janitorial services, maintenance of playing fields and maintenance of school buildings.
“Monthly costs experienced so far may not necessarily be indicative of costs going forward, as these are the first months of operation of a new facility,” according to the ministry.
Per month, maintenance and utilities actually cost slightly more than $150,000, compared to a budgeted amount of $184,000 per month.
In August, the ministry’s public relations officer, Kimberly Kirkconnell, said the school would cost in the region of $167,000 per month to run. She said busing students to and from the new high school would cost about $800,000 per year.
Costs vs. budget
During the four months, government spent some $320,000 on electricity, $97,000 on water, $117,000 on janitorial services, $37,000 on maintenance of playing fields, and $30,000 on maintenance of school buildings.
Expenses for electricity were 7 per cent over the budgeted monthly totals; and water costs were 26 per cent over budget. The monthly budget projections were prepared based on total annual allocations divided by the 10 months of school operations for the financial year (September 2012 to June 2013), according to the ministry.
Because of seasonal variation, the usefulness of comparing utility costs over a brief four-month period may be limited.
As might be expected, maintenance of the brand-new campus and buildings was also kept to a minimum, compared to the budget. Maintenance of playing fields was 54 per cent less than the budgeted figure, and maintenance of school buildings was 87 per cent less.
Cleaning up
On the other hand, actual expenses for janitorial services dwarfed the budgeted amounts, with the actual amount of $117,000 being 170 per cent greater than the budgeted amount of $43,000.
While the budget predicted janitorial services to be the least expensive of the five categories, it ended up being the second-most expensive, next to electricity.
The contract to supply janitorial services went out for bids twice through the Central Tenders Committee. The first round of tender application documents were made available 13 July, with applications due 1 August for a contract to last from 23 August, 2012, to 31 August, 2014.
The second round of tender application documents were made available 17 August, with applications due 5 September for a contract to last from 1 November, 2012, to 31 August, 2014.
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