Source: Education Week
In Florida’s Panhandle, education leaders have started the strenuous work of cleaning up and repairing schools ravaged by Hurricane Michael earlier this month, but they are also running into a longer-term problem: steep cost estimates that could lead to mounting piles of bills. In New Hanover County, N.C., Superintendent Tim Markley dipped into the district’s estimated $15 million surplus to allocate up to $9 million to pay for schools to be cleaned up and readied for students to return. The saving grace for many districts could be whether they have cash on hand to hire contractors and prevent small problems from morphing into bigger, more expensive ones, said David Stephens, the executive director of risk management for the Florida School Boards Insurance Trust.