Bricks and mortar.

These are costly items, and according to what superintendent of schools Dr. Milton Liverman told Suffolk City Council on Wednesday, their price is going up fast.

In a presentation on the city manager’s proposed Capital Improvement Plan (CIP) Liverman was explaining to council members who control the purse strings why the price of the new Creekside Elementary School is now 25 percent higher than originally anticipated, $3.6 million more real dollars for taxpayers to suck up.

&uot;The escalating costs are the results of differences in time and surging construction costs,&uot; Liverman said. &uot;Everything related to school construction has just skyrocketed.&uot;

If it’s true for schools, it’s true for police stations as well. Aside from Creekside, the other major component of the CIP plan was a proposed new police administration building that will cost $4.4 million – at least, that’s today’s estimate.

The building is ostensibly the most cost-effective measure to take as a result of some foundation settling at the current 12,500-square-foot police headquarters attached to the Municipal Building. The CIP outlines various alternatives for the police department from temporary housing in trailers, to renting out the old Food Lion building in the Holland Plaza, but all those alternatives have tangible and intangible downsides that officials say outweigh and financial benefits. Be that as it may, we would urge the City Council to proceed carefully on this matter —

that’s a lot of money.

Napoleon Nelson, managing director of Public Financial Management told Council members that borrowing the $18 million annually for the next decade that it would take to fully fund the CIP, would not harm the city’s good financial rating. Nor would it cause taxes to go up, he said, because increases in assessed values will offset increases in debt service.

That assessed values will continue to rise at the rate they have been (the current plan anticipates a six-percent increase) is not guaranteed. Just this week, reports of inflation are likely to cause the Federal Reserve Board to boost interest rates as early as next month. Huge federal deficits will apply pressure for rates to go up, meaning people will be less likely to continue forking over the ungodly prices they’ve been paying for Suffolk real estate. That’s a pessimistic view, but not an unrealistic one.

We would like to see some alternatives explored. Not alternatives such as those in the CIP that are merely cosmetic alternatives that retain the police administration status quo, but alternatives to the structure of the department. With the tremendous technological advances occurring, it seems that we might be able to do with less warehouse space for paper storage. That same technology can be used to increase law enforcement efficiency, perhaps allowing fewer officers to do more work.

It’s the same for schools. The technology is available to change the way schools have always operated. There is no reason some work could not be done from home, eliminating the need for even more classroom space. While we are far too deep in Creekside Elementary to make any changes, the same review needs to be done of the way we are teaching our children.

This is happening on the federal level. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has been working hard to transform our military into a lighter, faster force. So far, the results have been disappointing, but at least an effort is being made. The same re-engineering needs to be attempted on the local level. We simply cannot continue in perpetuity to spend millions upon millions on ever larger and more lavish buildings. Council should appropriate what is needed this year to take care of the police administration building, but also direct that a study be undertaken to see what real changes could be made to create a lighter, more efficient police department.