Plans to upgrade the A.W. Beattie Career Center in McCandless have been revised to reduce the projected cost to $22 million, largely by eliminating a separate wing for the child-care program.

Space for the day care and early childhood program would be folded back into the east wing, which would leave no room for an auditorium, larger gym and central testing area at the school.

After considerable debate, the Beattie board last month voted to submit the revised plan to the nine school boards that send students to Beattie and share in the cost of the school.

The latest plan trims the projected cost from about $24 million to $22 million.

The expansion aspect of the upgrade is reduced to about 11,000 square feet. That includes a 6,000-square-foot addition for automotive programs and a separate garage and storage building.

Eliminating a similarly sized addition that would have housed the child day-care center and the complementary early childhood education program will save $2.1 million.

Deleting the wing means the day care program will not have space to expand beyond its roughly 50-student load, and disruptions throughout the building during construction are more likely because less flexible space will be available, said Lynn Evans, an Avonworth school board member who is president of the Beattie board.

The latest proposal essentially retains updates for new heating and ventilation systems. It also meets Beattie officials' top concern to provide separate, secure entries to areas open to the public, such as the day-care center, the cosmetology salon and the culinary arts dining room.

Ms. Evans and other officials alternately viewed the latest compromise as perhaps having gone too far or not far enough, leaving it uncertain whether this plan, referred to as Plan AA, will fare any better than the previous one, which was called Plan A. The vote on the revised plan by the Beattie board was 10-0, with eight members not present.

In total, six variations, ranging in cost from about $8 million to $24 million, have been prepared since November 2005 when a state Department of Education audit raised concerns about safety and crowding at the nearly 40-year-old school on Babcock Boulevard.

If the latest plan is rejected at district-by-district school board meetings this month, it may be difficult to get anything approved before the fall term begins. Many of the school boards typically do not meet in July, and at least one, North Hills, has no meetings scheduled in August.

Also uncertain is how long Beattie can continue to operate without state sanction. The audit gave Beattie three years to correct conditions, at which point the school could be forced to cap enrollment in targeted programs such as automotive body work and technology.

To shift into the design phase, which would lead to submission of a comprehensive plan for state reimbursement, a feasibility study has to be approved. This requires approval by six of the nine districts that send students to Beattie plus 41 of the total 81 members on the nine school boards.

In April, the vote on the earlier plan was 5-4, with Avonworth, Deer Lakes, North Hills, Pine-Richland and Shaler Area in favor and Fox Chapel Area, Hampton, Northgate and North Allegheny opposed. The total number of board members supporting the plan fell one short at 40, with several absences.

At one point during the past year, three times as much expansion had been proposed for the 112,000-square-foot facility, with much larger wings for both automotive programs to the west and early childhood and day care to the east.

Kathryn Ingram, Beattie's top administrator, had been pushing particularly hard for a larger, high-tech day care center, because she believes its future meshes well with the demand for early childhood students who are trained to work at such facilities.

Pine-Richland's Richard Herko, chairman of the Beattie building committee, said the earlier plan, Plan A, did a better job in accommodating future needs.

"Personally, I am disappointed that we have decided to send the AA option out for a vote," Mr. Herko said, adding that he and several other Beattie board members "really feel that the educational need is there for the fuller expansion envisioned under the A option as outlined by the architect," J. Greer Hayden of HHSDR Architects Engineers, of Sharon.

Mr. Herko said the latest plan would require $19.9 million in bonds compared with the previous $22.4 million. Each amount is less than the total project cost because of investment earnings. The latest plan still allows for some future expansion but far less than the earlier plan.

But there is a compelling reason, he said, to endorse a project that allows for even more program growth.

"The consortium is getting the renovations at a discount," he said. "The state is funding part of this expansion and it would be very unlikely that such reimbursement would be available in the next 10 to 13 years."

Ms. Ingram agreed, estimating that those rebates could reduce the project's price tag by as much as 30 percent.

Meanwhile, North Allegheny's Beth Ludwig remained skeptical that Plan AA, while a marked improvement, is the best that Beattie can come up with for its students. North Allegheny cast the final vote that led to Plan A's defeat.

Like other Plan A critics from Hampton, Fox Chapel Area and Northgate, North Allegheny's Ms. Ludwig and Daniel Hubert did not believe that a need had been sufficiently documented for an expanded day-care center.

But North Allegheny also had pushed for more renovations instead of expansion, even as Fox Chapel Area questioned whether those renovations couldn't be put off for up to five years.

The difficulty in pleasing nine distinct boards has been frustrating for Ms. Evans, who once likened it to having too many chefs in the kitchen.

At any rate, Ms. Ludwig said little Monday to suggest that the North Allegheny board would embrace the revised plan.

She reiterated her wish for a comprehensive curriculum review at Beattie, one that matched growth and decline in specific courses with future workforce needs.

"The bottom line is that if these are the careers and skills necessary in today's job market and in the near future, Beattie . . . should be taking this advice into account."

Ms. Ludwig referred to a presentation made to the Beattie board last month by Ron Painter, chief executive officer of the Three Rivers Workforce Investment Board, which oversees the PA CareerLink network. Mr. Painter, she said, cited needs in various lab tech positions to support the region's health care industry as well as needs for everything from welders to equipment operators in alternative energy plants.

"It only makes sense to me that we should consider this information before we go forward with any construction option," she said.

What has frustrated Ms. Ingram and others, however, is the belief that accommodating such trends is next to impossible when her suggestions to meet those needs -- such as a larger, self-supporting day-care operation -- are excised to save money.

The latest compromise is particularly painful, Ms. Ingram said, "in that we have no room for future expansion within the footprint of the building."

Mr. Herko, meanwhile, was not much more enthusiastic about the revised plan than Ms. Ludwig.

It will be easy to explain to his board that Plan AA will cost Pine-Richland and the other districts less money. "It will be much tougher to answer the question of whether reducing the scope of the renovation is the right thing to do for our Beattie students," he said, "because I believe the decision is being made based on current financial needs rather than future educational requirements."

Arlene Bender, president of the North Hills school board and one of the two Beattie delegates, said hiring an outside consultant to revisit Beattie's future undercuts the board's faith in Ms. Ingram.

"We're second-guessing the educational leader of a vocational school who probably has more knowledge," she said, than the board members combined. "She has surrounded herself with caring, intelligent people who, in my opinion, have turned Beattie around."

"We have got to do something," Ms. Bender said. "Do I have a crystal ball to see what will happen? I really don't. I can't tell you what my board will do, let alone all 81."