The mechanical engineer who visited and assessed the New Bloomfield R-III School District gave a general overview of his recommendations to the district's Board of Education at the board's regular meeting Thursday night.
The engineer, Freddie Malicoat, works with Malicoat-Winslow Engineers, P.C. out of Columbia. The school board will use Malicoat's recommendations to help decide whether or not to put a no-tax-increase bond issue on the spring ballot to fund facility repairs.
Malicoat gave the board a list of projects, which are larger in scale, and estimated costs for the items on the list. His list, he said, has more things on it than the $2 million bond the board is considering placing on the ballot would cover. If the board decided to pursue a bond on the spring ballot, it would have to prioritize Malicoat's list of recommendations.
Items on the top of Malicoat's list include:
•The high school's parking lot;
•A computerized temperature control (CTC) system;
•Having the district's buildings' roofs closely examined and replacing what is necessary;
•Tuck-pointing; and
•A greenhouse.
He recommended the district put these items at the top of its priority list if it pursues the bond issue.
During his walk through of the district, Malicoat looked at the building's roofs. He said some of the roofs' units have some age but don't look like they necessarily need replacing just yet.
The CTC system, Malicoat said, would be programmed to control all operations related to the heating and air conditioning equipment in the district. When a problem occurs, the CTC system would diagnose itself and the equipment to find out where the problem is.
If that system was installed in the district, all 79 roof units would have to be removed during installation, which is when Malicoat recommended the district take a closer look at the roof tops and replace whatever necessary.
Before contacting Malicoat, Superintendent David Tramel spoke to various firms about potential repairs in the district. But, he told the board at its October meeting that he felt the firms he spoke to were more interested in selling their product. That's when he contacted Malicoat to get an unbiased opinion on the district's facilities and what repairs may be needed.
"I feel really good about getting a more neutral, third-party glimpse at where we are as a district physically," Tramel told the board at its October meeting.
If the district decided to put a bond on the spring ballot and if it passed, the school board could also decide to hire Malicoat to assist in bidding out the district's projects included in the bond.
Tramel said Thursday night that the board would have to decide if it wanted to pursue a bond by next month to get it on the spring ballot.
"We need to come to pretty good grips by next board meeting if we want to pursue this," Tramel said to the board Thursday night.
Larry J. Hart, the district's financial adviser, is working on preliminary language for a bond issue in case the board decides to put it on the spring ballot. If the board does decide to put the bond on the spring ballot, ballot language would have to be submitted in January.