The Board of Education approved its Capital Improvement Plan (CIP) Tuesday, September 15, with the addition of a $1.62 million Hawley Elementary School boiler project.

The project was added to the fourth year of the five-year spending plan.

The CIP was first presented to the school board August 18 by CIP/Finance/Facilities Committee member Kathy Hamilton, who explained changes to the board’s proposed CIP for 2016 through 2021 included a Middle Gate Elementary School boiler and lighting upgrade, a revision to the Newtown High School roof project, and a new project to replace the turf field at Newtown High School to meet the recommended ten-year replacement. The Middle Gate boiler project was moved up from the previous year’s CIP to “take advantage of a program that is being offered by [Eversource],” she said at the meeting.

The school board also discussed the proposed CIP during its September 1 meeting, when the district’s Facilities Director Gino Faiella explained Eversource offered to install a gas line for the Sandy Hook Elementary School building project with the town digging the trench for the line. The offer was also extended to Middle Gate, which was reported as potentially saving roughly $400,000 to $600,000, according to Public Works Director Fred Hurley during the August 18 meeting.

At its last meeting, the board directed Mr Faiella to determine costs within the full proposed Hawley project.

This week, Mr Faiella told the school board he spoke with Chuck Boos, the principal of New Britain-based Kaestle Boos Associates, Inc, and he shared cost estimates for pieces of the Hawley project.

Completing the boiler work alone, Mr Faiella said, would be the least intrusive portion of the project to complete, in the event the school board later decides to complete Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) upgrades.

The second phase for the project, Mr Faiella said, for $4.5 million would include all the mechanical and electrical work upgrades to “get the 1997 and 1948 buildings prepared only.”

A third phase would be broken into two parts: the first, for $2.6 million, would provide air conditioning for the 1948 and 1997 portions of the building, and the second part, $7 million, would complete ADA upgrades and provide air conditioning in the 1921 area of the building, according to Mr Faiella.

“A lot of the work that was designed and the schematics were based on the ADA,” said Mr Faiella, explaining it is hard to pull out the cost of the ADA upgrades alone. “[Kaestle Boos] had their marching orders from the Public Building and Site Commission, not from us… So to pull that piece apart is going [to be difficult].” He said it may create additional expense because the design of the project may change.

“If the building stays as is, and you want to do the duct work as is, taking the risk that you are not going to alter the building in the future and rip apart everything you just did, no matter how you look at it, yes, there is going to be a dollar amount associated with a redesign,” said Mr Faiella.

Mr Faiella also said completing the ADA compliance upgrades would be a “big project,” and it would shut down the 1921 portion of the building for roughly 12 months.

A failed motion by Board of Education member Michelle Ku would have added an estimate for professional services for the project into the second year of the CIP, but a number of board members voiced concern with not having an exact cost for those services.

Mr Faiella told the school board he originally recommended the boiler project be completed, because “we cannot run a school without boilers. It’s unfortunate, but we can run a school without air conditioning. But I have to have boilers or the school will be damaged in many different ways if the boilers fail.”

The boiler project, according to Mr Faiella, would add a third boiler at Hawley for redundancy.

“One of the boilers in the [1921] building is giving us some problems. One of the boilers is actually fairly new… but it is the next easiest step, I think, in the process for Hawley School, getting it closer to where we want to get to,” said Mr Faiella.

The board also discussed having more conversations about looking further out than five years in the CIP and working amore with the Public Building and Site Commission on the Hawley project.

Adding the boiler project to the fourth year of the board’s proposed CIP passed unanimously. Board members Kathy Hamilton and John Vouros were not present for the meeting.

The CIP will now go before the Board of Finance.

Later in the meeting, Superintendent of Schools Joseph V. Erardi, Jr, spoke with the board about future work of the Facility and Enrollment Study Committee, which delivered a presentation to the board in June, addressing declining enrollment and the possibility of closing a school. At the time, the committee endorsed closing Hawley Elementary School as the first option or Newtown Middle School. The board decided on June 24 that no school would be closed for the 2016-17 school year and a general discussion on the best use of district facilities would continue.

Dr Erardi said a partnership with a town facility study could be part of future committee work. The superintendent also said the timeline for the Facility and Enrollment Study Committee’s suggestions has changed.

Board members asked for a long-term projection from the committee, more data to be shared from the original study, an assessment of building use, and more.

“We need to look at how we are using our facilities and are we using them to the best of our advantaged based on current enrollment and forecasted enrollment,” BOE member Debbie Leidlein said. “When we look outside the box can we optimize our educational program based on the fact that we have more space than we need for our current educational program.”

Dr Erardi said the board’s recommendations for the committee were good “first steps,” and he estimated the work would be presented back to the school board between November and December.