Mayor Sara Hernández has written to the Community of Madrid requesting timelines, amounts, and criteria for the announced €1.24 billion. The council will vote on Tuesday for an extra municipal allocation of one million to temper schools.
The mayor of Getafe, Sara Hernández, has sent a letter to the president of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, asking for technical information about the regional plan of €1.24 billion allocated for climate control, energy efficiency, and accessibility of public educational centres. The council demands to know what portion of that amount will reach the schools and institutes in Getafe, when it will be available, what criteria will be used for distribution, and which administration will execute the works.
The mayor announced that on Tuesday, 23rd September, the municipal council will vote on a budget modification to allocate €1,000,000 from its own resources for the maintenance and tempering of the city's schools, including reducing heat in the playgrounds.
We are surprised to learn about this investment through the media, especially after the formal meeting on 6th July with the Education Councillor, Mercedes Zarzalejo, where the head of the area explicitly denied Getafe the availability of regional funding for school climate control.
According to the council, at that meeting on 6th July, the Education Councillor denied any action from the regional government to climate control schools. Hernández attributes the change in stance to social, political, and family pressure, asserting that the responsibility lies with the regional government.
We welcome this change in stance very positively, which is nothing more than acknowledging the obvious and what the Community of Madrid is legally obligated to provide. We will not cede a single euro of those €1.24 billion that belongs to the centres in Getafe.
The council claims it has legal, technical, and economic reports confirming that climate control of classrooms is an exclusive regional responsibility, warning that taking on that burden would be irregular. Furthermore, it proposes that the system of the plan be aerothermal, capable of providing efficient and uniform heating and cooling, and rules out the patchy installation of conventional air conditioning units due to thermal inequality among students and health risks associated with dust, bacteria, mites, or legionella, which the Department has already shown technical reluctance towards.
The Getafe City Council states that it has been financing interventions to temper classrooms and playgrounds with its own funds for years. Among these, it mentions creating shade in the sandpit and playgrounds of the Santiago Ramón y Cajal Special Education School, improvement works in all schools, children's homes, and municipal nursery schools, a total of 37 centres, the installation of artificial shades, planting trees, placing water fountains in the playgrounds, and replacing windows to improve insulation.
Now we are going to increase by €1,000,000, but it is necessary to take a further step and climate control all classrooms and spaces in schools and institutes, and that can only be done by the Community of Madrid because it is the competent administration.
The municipal proposal will be put to a vote in the council meeting on 23rd September, where the Getafe City Council needs to pass the budget modification to incorporate the additional million euros.
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