By John Howell
South Panola School District  Chief Financial Officer David Rubenstein told trustees that insurance proceeds will cover “almost 100 percent” of the cost of replacement of the Batesville Elementary School kindergarten building destroyed by fire July 10.

The CFO presented, during the July 28 meeting of South Panola school trustees, a lengthy and detailed report of work to remove the rubble and prepare for its replacement.

Insurance will pay “replacement costs,” Rubenstein said, for the building valued at $3.2 million.
“If it cost $5 million for replacement cost, they will pay the $5 million for replacement cost,” he said.

The district received an initial payment of $1 million last week.

Rubenstein also said that covered costs also include the $550,000 for demolition, $50,000 to lease two portable classrooms for one year (“They will be temporary,” SP Superintendent Tim Wilder interjected.). All building code upgrades that have been placed into effect since the insured building’s construction.

“In 1955 sprinkler systems were not a requirement, but today you’ve got to have a sprinkler system, they will pay for that to occur,” the CFO said.

Other covered expenses include:
• One year lease of a food truck with capability to carry hot food and cold food from the high school cafeteria kitchen to serve first graders;

• A 400-foot canopy to cover the new sidewalk under construction to allow first grade students all-weather bus access on Atwell Street.

“We hope that we will have a canopy up in about three or four weeks,” Rubenstein said;
• Contents from books, desks, chairs, tables to computers — “Right now, they’ve got a million dollars sitting right there for contents,” the district CFO said.

“You’re building two buildings and one of  them is insurance and one of them is not,” school board president Sandra Darby said. “I’m for you getting somebody to help you.”

Construction of the new building to replace the kindergarten building will coincide with construction of the previously planned ninth grade wing at the high school.

“I think right now, we can handle it with the staff we have got,” Rubenstein said.

“Unfortunately or fortunately, I’ve got the experience to get that done,” the business manager said. Rubenstein’s 12-year tenure as business manager at the Moss Point School District before coming to South Panola last year coincided with its destruction and recovery from Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

“As complex as this is, it’s no where near what I’ve been through before … I don’t have to deal with FEMA and I don’t have to deal with MEMA, dealing with an insurance company is like a piece of cake when you have to deal with them through all the red tape.

“It’s like lightning speed what we’re going through with the insurance company, … versus having to deal with a natural disaster or anything that involves the federal government where you have to deal with the red tape.”