by Alex Brooks
The Hoosick Falls School Board unanimously approved a $17 million Capital Project which will be put before the voters of the District for their approval on December 2.
[private]The project includes safety items totaling $4.7 million, including asbestos abatement, security upgrades at building entrances, emergency generator replacement, improved lighting in the parking lot and improvements to the roof, foundation and lighting at the bus garage. It includes energy savings measures totaling $3.2 million, including kitchen equipment upgrades, lighting upgrades and improvements to the heating and cooling systems in the buildings. It includes repair and replacement items totaling $4.3 million, including replacing all of the original bathrooms built in 1961, replacing ceilings throughout the building and bus garage site improvements. And finally, it includes major improvements to the technology and communications systems at the school totaling $4.88 million.
The administration presented each of the pieces of the project to the School Board in great detail, in a meeting that lasted 2½ hours. By the end of the meeting, all of the School Board members, even those who were initially daunted by the big number, were convinced of the necessity of doing the project in its entirety.
School District Superintendent Ken Facin said, “We spent two years studying this.” He said everything that was not essential was winnowed out. For example, he said, the District would really like to have new science labs, but they were $2.5 million, and they were taken out of the plan. In addition, the pellet boiler and the solar project were taken out of the capital project and financed through grants and performance contracts. Of the final project presented this week, Facin said, “This is not extravagant. This is what’s needed.”
Facin also noted that from a construction management point of view, there are large efficiencies in doing things all at once. If you are going to take out all of the ceilings in the building, that’s the time to run new wires for heating control systems, fire alarms and internet/communications systems.
The project would be financed with a 15 year bond. The first annual payment, due in the 2017-2018 fiscal year, would be $1,365,908, but after State building aid of about a million dollars annually and energy savings resulting from the project are subtracted, the net annual taxpayer impact of the project is expected to be $326,000 annually.
Business Administrator Pam Hatfield gave a presentation about the financing of the project which showed that although $17 million is a big spend, it can be managed in a way that will not result in tax increases. Net debt service payments in this year’s budget are about $340,000. In the next two years they will be just over $350,000. In the 2017-2018 year, when the District will start paying for this project, net debt service payments will be a little over $400,000 higher, but that would be for only one year. The next year, the 1997 capital project would be paid off, and the net debt service expense would be about $210,000 higher than it is now. It would stay at that level for five years, and then the 2007 capital project would be paid off, and it would from then on be only slightly higher than what the District is paying now.
So over the six years while the District is still paying off existing capital project debt, it would pay a total of about 1.5 million more than it is now paying for debt service. But the District currently has a debt service reserve with $2.5 million in it that could be used to make sure that the District’s net debt service cost remains unchanged from what it is now.
If the project is approved in December, construction would take place over two summers, 2016 and 2017, and would be completed in time for the start of school at the end of August in 2017.
Facin said, “When we did the last Building Condition Survey in 2011, we knew we had infrastructure issues. The building is 53 years old, and many components of it need to be updated.” In addition to that, Facin talked at length about why the technology upgrade portion of the project is essential to running a 21st century school. Board Member Andy Beaty agreed, saying, “Technology is the thing of the future – we have to have it.”
Facin said that since they realized they would need to do a major upgrade of the facilities soon, they have been putting sums of money into the debt service reserve for several years and that is why they are now in a position to do a major project without big tax increases.
He said the administration and the School Board will be working between now and the vote on December 2 to get information out to the public about the details of the project through presentations and mailings.[/private]