The 158 windows smashed at Copeland Elementary School around the Christmas break ended up costing the Richmond County school system $24,000 - about $8,000 more than originally anticipated, a school official confirmed today.

The problem, said school system facilities director Benton Starks, is that some asbestos was discovered in the putty holding the broken windows in place. As a result, the school system had to call in an environmental cleanup group that cost about $11,000, he said.

"This was expensive," Starks said.

In his decade as facilities director, Starks said the damage is probably the second-most expensive, ranking it with a vandalism incident at Butler High two years ago.

The most costly vandalism case, he said, occurred about 10 years ago when someone set fire to a wing at Josey High, which ended up costing $1.5 million.

Starks said all of the broken windows at Copeland have now been repaired, but there's still a lingering issue with blinds. He said that when window repairs were undertaken, some blinds were stacked up and accidentally went missing.

"They just got hauled off," he said, noting how things were hectic at the time as workers tried to repair things quickly so school could reopen.

The cost to repair the blinds, he said, could be an additional $2,000 to $3,000. He said such funding might be difficult as his budget has already taken a big hit with the window repairs. Instead, he said, his office might consider putting up a tinting material on windows at Copeland. He said his office might have a leftover roll of tinting.

If it doesn't, the cost would be about $50 to $60 a window for the tint, he said. The cost of a blind, he said, is about $80 a window.