Voters give thumbs up to school bond
Teamwork is what it has been all about for members of the maintenance staff who posed with Superintendent Leonard Skuggevik after the results were announced. They are (from left) Tyler Clark, Andy Steinmuller, Mike Dunning, Greg Sulahian, Jose Montalvo and Mr. Skuggevik
Voters gave the Shelter Island School bond vote a resounding endorsement Tuesday, voting 159 to 21 to allow the district to float a bond of up to $1.63 million to pay for a new heating and ventilation system.“I’m just very thankful to everybody in the community for coming out and supporting the school,” new Superintendent Leonard Skuggevik said.
“We thank the community for their support,” said Board of Education President Stephen Gessner, echoing the sentiment.
The bond will allow McClave Engineering to go forward with plans to replace the faulty system that failed completely almost a year ago, initially requiring maintenance workers to spell one another around the clock to keep the building heated.
After the Board of Education agreed to spend $55,000 for new controls, the crew still had to manually control the flow of heat and air conditioning in the building, but could do so by computer, rather than having to be on site at the school.
Still, it was obvious that the antiquated system continued on borrowed time and could quit altogether at any moment.
Now school officials have to hope the system makes it through another winter because it’s not expected that the New York State Education Department, which must approve such projects, has a backlog of applications before it gets to review Shelter Island’s needs.
Despite the added cost of overtime and increased fuel use in the past year to keep the system running, the state won’t fast-track the project because it doesn’t consider it an emergency.
There is a backup propane system that could be used in the event of a complete failure and while that would be very costly, it would still render the building usable. Fast-tracking of projects only occurs if a building is totally unusable.
Had the bond failed, the work still would have had to be performed, but instead of paying off a bond over a number of years, it could have forced the Board of Education to hike taxes to pay for the project in a single year.
The bond money will cover the cost of a new heating and ventilation system, replacement of a fuel tank and ancillary work, including demolition necessary to the project. McClave Engineering also plans some repointing of building masonry.
Plans also call for installation of 98 solar panels to cut heating costs.
While the district is attending to the HVAC work, it’s also pushing ahead with a performance contract with Johnson Controls that has identified several modifications to the building that will result in energy savings.
Under a performance contract, the annual savings in energy is guaranteed to be greater than the amount it costs to complete the work. Daniel Haffel of Johnson Controls outlined the financing in June, explaining that while the district would be asked to allocate $75,503 a year to pay for the changes, income each year from energy savings will bring in more than $14,000 in revenue than what is being spent.
That income results from energy rebates of about $20,000, New York State aid of $7,533 and energy savings of $4,477 from operations and management costs. The Johnson Controls contract runs for 17 years and if the expected savings fail to materialize, the company is on the hook for the difference, not the district.
The work will include improvements in lighting; building winterization; energy management via computers to maximize savings; installation of window films that block the sun’s heat in the summer and protect from winter cold; plug load controls; and solar panels.
Both projects aim for completion by November 2015.
