Construction on the replacement for F.H. Collins Secondary School has been delayed a year, but Liberal Education critic Eric Fairclough isn't buying the government's excuses.

"Three months ago, the Minister of Education (Patrick Rouble) told this House that $24.4 million would be allocated for the new F.H. Collins school ... (but) like many government commitments, it's long on promises and short on delivery,” charged Fairclough during Monday's question period in the legislature.

Last year, the government earmarked $2.7 million for the design of the new high school but according to this year's budget, that amount remains the only funding for the $50-million project still on the drawing board.

Both the official Opposition and the F.H. Collins School Council had thought the first phase of construction funding – $24.4 million – would have been included in the 2011-12 fiscal year budget so that construction, promised for this year, could commence.

Sandra Henderson, chair of the school council, said today she is not only disappointed opening day for the new secondary school will be a year later than the anticipated 2012 date, but that she had to hear about it from media reports, rather than the Education department.

"We have not had a meeting with the building advisory committee since August ... so I anticipated there was a problem somewhere,” said Henderson, who has sought a meeting with Mike Woods, the department's superintendent of schools.

"Practically every month we've been asking, ‘What's happening?' and (the department) says, ‘You'll be hearing, you'll be hearing' ... so there seems to be a vacuum there.”

From Rouble's perspective, "The design is still not at the tenderable stage.”

"We've done our homework on this project, Mr. Speaker, by looking at the facilities that we have throughout Whitehorse through a secondary school programming review and working with the building advisory committee,” Rouble told the legislative assembly Monday.

And the government has done a sizable share of homework on the future of the Whitehorse high school.

To date, it has spent $400,000 on planning the replacement for F.H. Collins, in addition to a raft of previous studies to examine geothermal heating in the region, and to decide whether to renovate the aging school, or to build from the ground up.

In 2003, and in 2005, analyses were conducted for a ground source heat pump at Vanier Catholic Secondary School, just down the road from F.H. Collins.

The 2005 study determined that for $867,000 worth of infrastructure, the annual heat savings would recoup the investment in 14 years.

"The capital cost of such heat recovery systems are high, but the relatively low operations and maintenance costs provide an attractive payback scenario,” read the F.H. Collins specification requirements, which also suggest wood pellet heating as an alternative.

Despite these two favourable studies, the Education department continues to dither deciding which option it prefers.

But the glacial pace on decisions regarding the fate of the aging high school or its replacement is nothing new.

In 2007, the government spent $79,000 on a study to determine whether renovations or starting from the ground up was the way to go; however, that report recommended further investigation.

A year later, $200,000 was paid to Vancouver-based consultants Proactive Information Services, which concluded that F.H. Collins, built in 1963, is past its best-before date.

In 2009, the government awarded the design contract to FSC Architects and Engineers, experts in cold-weather design based in Yellowknife.

Calls by the Star to FSC's Whitehorse offices were directed to the Department of Highways and Public Works' Kevin Fisher, who is project manager for the new school.

Woods did not return a phone message either.

Approximately 700 students are enrolled at F.H. Collins.