Finance Review Of CIP Considers Air Quality In The Schools

By John Voket

Newtown’s superintendent of schools and the public works director this week addressed questions posed by the Board of Finance at its January 11 meeting. During his report to the finance board, Chairman John Kortze said as a member of the school board’s capital improvement plan (CIP) Committee, he learned about a nearly decade-old districtwide environmental air quality test.

Mr Kortze told his board that according to information in that report, which he said was ordered and maintained by the district’s business manager, it appeared that the middle school had the most significant air quality concerns.

He said by comparing charts published in the report from EnviroScence Consultants, Inc, three of the six areas tested in the middle school on November 1, 2001, had “action levels” of carbon dioxide as defined in the 72-page publication. Mr Kortze questioned why, if the middle school air quality reflected the highest concentrations of carbon dioxide, was the district giving top priority to a Hawley School heating and air conditioning renovation.

“The report seems to have data that begs the question what we’re doing and when,” Mr Kortze said. “We should know what’s going on [with the air quality] before we commit money.”

Superintendent Janet Robinson responded two days later that a new air quality survey was ongoing, and that she expected updated, real-time results by week’s end. But the superintendent also admitted, “I don’t know why this report fell off the radar.

“This is an oversight,” Dr Robinson said, adding that “a lot of changes have occurred around here since 2001” when the last air quality reporting was conducted.

Dr Robinson said the district should be doing a more comprehensive range of sampling, and that readings from the November 2001 samplings at the middle school, and comparatively lower samplings taken a week earlier at Hawley School, were a snapshot in time, and may not accurately reflect the average levels of carbon dioxide exposure over time in the buildings.

In terms of worker safety, Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has set a permissible exposure limit for CO2 of 5,000 parts per million (PPM) over an eight-hour work day.

A 1997 technical brief from The Washington State University Cooperative Extension Energy Program states that while levels below 5,000 PPM are considered to pose no serious health impacts, individuals in schools and offices with elevated CO2 concentrations tend to report drowsiness, lethargy, and a general sense of stale air.

In regard to the 2001 readings, Dr Robinson said, “We don’t like to see anything over 1,000 PPM, but the danger level as I understand it would have to be in excess of 5,000.”

Nonetheless, the superintendent said she was still backing the Hawley HVAC upgrade as top priority because students in that building were seated in the same classrooms all day. In that case, she said that CO2 ranges up to 1,200 PPM taken there in the 1920 and 1948 additions could contribute to students getting more drowsy and inattentive as the day wears on due to the increasing exposure of human CO2 emissions into tight, closed classrooms.

Students On The Move

In the middle school, however, the superintendent said students move from class to class every 45 minutes, and that constant movement of people into and out of classrooms diminishes the physical effects of CO2, even at the maximum range of 2,200 PPM reported in the upper floor C-wing, 1,840 PPM in the upper floor A-wing, and 1,400 PPM in the D-wing of the sprawling facility.

She said in recent years, school maintenance staff have also thoroughly cleaned and serviced all air handling equipment to ensure peak performance, despite its age and extent of use. She said even when air exchanging fans shut down as outside air temperatures fall during winter months, there is still a constant natural exchange of air through the middle school system.

Dr Robinson said staff directing air testing that is ongoing this week will attempt to replicate the exact locations where the 2001 readings were taken, to try and produce the most accurate and true comparisons of not only carbon dioxide exposure, but any heightened carbon monoxide, temperature, and relative humidity, which could all additionally impact a person’s health and performance.

Mr Kortze said he was pleased to see there would be up-to-the-minute air quality data when school officials came before the finance board to discuss capital improvement proposals and ranking during a planned special meeting January 25.

“But I question why the Board of Education chose to ignore for so long the information they already had,” Mr Kortze said, adding that in more than 17 years of elected service, this was the first time he ever heard about or saw the “actionable” air quality numbers.

Bridge Estimates Dropping

Later during the January 11 finance board meeting, both Mr Kortze and Vice Chairman James Gaston questioned why there was an average 30 percent decline in estimated costs to bond and replace a dozen local bridges over the next five to ten years. First Selectman Pat Llodra and Finance Director Robert Tait did not have documentation on hand to explain the substantial drop in actual projected costs in current CIP backup documentation, but promised to get the information.

Public Works Director Fred Hurley told The Bee Wednesday that the original documentation estimating costs for each of the dozen local bridge replacement projects was factored with “industry standard contingencies” that routinely add 50 percent — and as much as 75 percent — to the bottom line estimates. He explained that as projects get closer to financing, his department contracts an engineering firm to develop updated estimates, taking into account current conditions and market costs for materials and labor.

“Full engineering, and in the case of bids for the first bridge project, actual bidding, have reduced the unknowns and the previously applied contingencies,” Mr Hurley said. “As a result of bids on a Castle Meadow bridge replacement, that project came in around $100,000 less than the engineering estimate.”

The public works chief said the original soft estimate for that project was between $400,000 and $450,000. But the engineering consultant fixed the maximum cost at about $330,000.

Mr Hurley said the accepted bid for the work came in at $220,000.

“That’s great news for us and for taxpayers,” Mr Hurley said. “That potentially lowers our original estimate to replace all the remaining bridges [in town] from $10 million, to between six and seven million.”

Mr Hurley said the next priority bridge replacement is on Poverty Hollow Road, and if approved, would be the next project to go out to bid in the 2010- 2011 fiscal cycle.