Dr. David Hopson
With less than 3 weeks left until staff and students return, the custodial/maintenance staffs frenetic pace continues unabated. As mentioned previously, this was a short summer for our staff to complete the annual summer maintenance and deep cleaning. As they always seem to do, they are progressing steadily towards completing their formidable list of tasks so that everything will be in place for the return of staff and students.
It’s reassuring to have a section of the hallway blocked one day to strip and clean floors and then to see it completed and shining like new only a day or two later (the time depends more on the weather than our staff, high humidity really slows the process down). While I know this process occasionally inconveniences some staff who must relocate for this time, including staff working with students for our summer programs, it does yield stunning results in the short term. More importantly, the fact that our maintenance and custodial staffs are constantly cleaning and maintaining our facilities, including regular, preventative maintenance, provides us with facilities that remain in great shape over time – something that visitors to our district note on a regular basis. The long-term payback for these efforts are a reduction in down time for our operations, buildings and equipment that remain in good operation condition, and a great reduction in long-term capital replacements.
For anyone that’s interested, the school committee has approved a long-term (10 year) plan for maintenance and capital projects that can be viewed on the district’s website (under school committee; presentations to school committee; Capital/Maintenance Plan). This plan outlines some of the items the district may wish to consider as we move forward. Some of these are new items that will help protect our investments in equipment and may provide long-term savings in purchasing while others are capital projects for items that need to be replaced or updated. Some of the replacement/update items are required (the main campus well for example), some are for reasons of efficiency of operations (the boilers for example), and others are to update before failure may cause even more expensive renovations (the middle school roof is a good example of this).
While we have been allocating for minor updates and necessary repairs, the cost of some of these other items are significant. As the school committee moves forward, despite the current and necessary focus on the Worthington withdrawal, they will have to begin determining, in collaboration with the towns, the best way to fund these long-term projects. This is a process that will weigh the physical needs of the district against time, the cost of these items against the fiscal ability of the towns to support the improvements, and the complications of how to fund these projects (i.e., as part of an operational budget for a given year, as a multi-year project out of operating costs, as a capital project account funded by annual town assessments, or as part of a long-term bonding process). All of these decisions impact the others, thus there is no easy answer but rather a process to weigh the pros and cons and determine the most advantageous way to move forward. I would hope that the district is able to move forward on a funding plan so that we can avoid the costs of ignoring the capital and maintenance needs of the district which potentially could result in significant capital costs or replacing/renovating entire buildings rather than just specific operation systems.
