Architects’ Budget Soars
Springs School architects sent school officials a list of building repair projects, maintenance, and necessary upgrades last Thursday, one that is even more detailed and far more expensive than the list initially presented to the district’s facilities committee in the summer of 2015.
The price tag of the work rose from just over $3 million to $7.438 million. The expanded laundry list includes a number of big-ticket items: renovating the nurse’s room bathroom to make it handicapped-accessible, $125,000; replacing the roof over the older portions of the building, $680,000; replacing all older, single-pane windows, $558,000; installing a new fire alarm system, $200,000, and upgrading the existing electrical system, which is approaching its capacity, $250,000. The list also includes a host of smaller projects, such as the installation of a chair lift to make the music room handicapped-accessible, $50,000, and new wall padding in the gym, $21,000.
New enrollment projections were also unveiled. According to a September report by the Western Suffolk Board of Cooperative Educational Services, the school can expect approximately 50 more students over the next five years, which is slower than the previous growth rate of 200 students over the last 10 years. School officials noted the BOCES figures had been wrong in the past, though, and indeed, a 2013 projection showed 2016-17 to be the peak year, at 700 students. As of last Thursday, Springs had 740 students in kindergarten through eighth grade, at least 20 more than this time last year and 40 more than the year before that. The updated BOCES projections suggest the school will be short three regular classrooms by 2022.
No decisions were made last week at the meeting of the school board and administrators, who make up the capital planning committee. Whether the repairs and maintenance will be addressed through the capital reserve fund or through a larger expansion project accomplished via bond referendum has not been determined.
Barbara Dayton, the school board president, said Tuesday that the process was “still very much up in the air.”
“I think there are certain repairs that are at the top of the list, like dealing with the roof,” she said. “It may have gotten worse since the first BBS [Architects] report was done. . . . Some of those repairs will be covered if we build out, and others need to be taken care of right away. Can we afford to repoint some bricks if we’re expanding? Everything is going to be weighed very carefully.”
The committee also discussed the possible expansion and renovation of the school building. A key issue is the fate of the gymnasium, which has been deemed too small for current needs. Officials debated whether to add a second gym to the school or build a separate, larger one and carve the existing gym up into classrooms and smaller learning spaces.
“I think our vision is to get a couple of scenarios to say, ‘All right, this is the basic necessity. This is the one where we can do the things we need to do,’ ” Ms. Dayton said. “It’s been brought up before with the gym, where we’re not offering enough. I thought their idea of splitting the existing gym into multiple spaces was interesting. It never occurred to me. It was an eye-opener. I think this whole process is very exciting. I think we’ll get somewhere — it will just take us some time.”
The district is still eyeing a springtime referendum, but has not set a specific figure for the community to vote on.
The capital planning committee and the architects will hold another public meeting next Thursday at 11 a.m. at the school to review the school’s needs in closer detail. A second meeting, to begin the process of laying out potential components in an expansion, will be held after Thanksgiving.