CPS Backpeddles on Salaries to Complete Asbestos Requirement

Columbia Public School administrators yesterday backed off a portion of their scheduled salary increases for teachers because of about $590,000 in additional expenses they expect to face for the 2009-10 school year. The increases, aimed at fulfilling a teacher contract for continuing education, will likely have to wait until spring.

Part of the $590,000 will be spent on fulfilling a mandate from the Missouri Department of Natural Resources (DNR), which requires hiring a fulltime air-quality inspector.

The mandate stems from a complaint raised by a parent, Christine Doerr, who called the state DNR about asbestos left in room 213 of Jefferson Jr. High School after a renovation project.

A surprise inspection by the DNR on the day following Doerr's phone call turned up asbestos in samples the plaster ceiling. The rates of contamination, based on sampling, run from three to five percent asbestos. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, in its Asbestos Hazard Emergency Response Act, or AHERA, lists anything over one percent as a significant cause for concern.

The school argues that it checked inspection documents from 1983 showing the asbestos in the ceiling had been removed. What they should have done, according to Steve Boone of the Missouri DNR, was called in an asbestos inspector to verify the absence of asbestos before any remodeling was done. As it is, dangerous asbestos has already been released into the school's air.

The failure was a violation of AHERA, which the Missouri DNR enforces to the letter. Accordingly, the DNR sent the Columbia Public School District a letter requiring the district to take steps to be sure that kind of error doesn't happen again. The solution that school officials worked out was the permanent hire of an air-quality inspector, whose salary is projected to be more than $68,000.

It was an unexpected expense, but one that seems essential at Columbia and school districts across the nation as aging schools face either renovation or demolition. Asbestos, a mineral found in rocks and mined until the 1970s for use in building products like insulation, floor tiles, tile adhesives, acoustical ceiling tiles, plaster and spray-on insulation, can - when inhaled or ingested - cause lesions in the mesothelial tissue of the lungs and abdomen.

These lesions lead to various diseases like asbestosis, lung and digestive system cancers, and mesothelioma, a particularly lethal form of cancer that lies dormant for decades. When mesothelioma is finally diagnosed, doctors seldom give patients more than a year to live.

The exposure levels at Jefferson Jr. High School were unexpectedly large, but health agencies involved in monitoring asbestos issues like OSHA, the CDC, and the American Cancer Society all agree that there is no minimum safe level of exposure when it comes to asbestos. One day or a lifetime can trigger mesothelioma.

In addition to hiring an air quality inspector, the district must also hire four new full-time teachers and purchase five new trailers to accommodate about 100 additional students, primarily at the kindergarten level.

These expenses are expected to leave little left over for continuing education, though the board did vote an across-the-board increase of 2.55 percent for support staff and 1 percent for teachers, and hopes it will be able to fulfill the continuing education portion of the district package in the spring.

Source: The Columbia Daily Tribune

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