Northern Marianas Housing Corp. planner and grant writer Jeannie Mafnas said they asked Public School System Commissioner Rita Sablan about how many students they estimate to transfer to the new school, she said, “She was thinking about 600 kids, which are half of the Hopwood population, because of the current overcrowding.”
We also asked if she was going to look at other funding sources for the construction. She said PSS would look into tapping into CIP funds.
“We are still waiting. We are still in the planning stage of looking into the Sec. 108 loan guaranty which is about $4.1 million,” she said.
She went on to say, “We still don’t know if we were going to take out the $4.1 million [loan]. We’re still waiting for PSS to provide us with the project cost—how much will it cost to the build the project.”
Mafnas said NMHC was previously given an estimate of $8 million to build the school.
Asked when the construction can begin, NMHC planning administrative assistant Jacob Muna said, “No set date to construct the school yet.”
Mafnas told Variety that the planned school would consist of four buildings of 27 classrooms each.
“Four buildings dedicated just for classrooms,” she said.
As the housing agency weighs its options whether to take out the Section 108 loan, it has yet to figure out what the total construction costs of the new school would be.
NMHC used a portion of its CBDG grant before Aug. 2 to buy three lots in Koblerville where the new junior high school will be constructed.
NMHC paid $1.17 million for the approximately 60,000 sq. m. properties.
In the previous board meeting it was revealed that the NMHC was expected to spend $820,363 in the first year for planning, A&E design and administrative costs.
In the event that the construction cost would be more than what they expected, the housing agency would be taking out a $4.1 million loan — five times the amount the agency receives on annual basis — which may stall other CDBG projects of the agency.
Repayment period for the loan would take up to 20 years, according to Mafnas in her earlier report to the NMHC board.
The agency would also be committing their future CDBG grants as payment for the loan.
With the CNMI’s declining population, the agency was slashed of its CDBG funds from $1.3 million to $880,000.
