North Putnam discusses future
BAINBRIDGE -- The North Putnam School Corporation board spent a large portion of its time going over procedural issues over the Rainy Day Fund and discussing how to handle needed repairs and replacements at its schools at Thursday's meeting.
The corporation has mostly replaced the roof over North Putnam High School and the windows at various schools. With those major projects out of the way, the board is looking forward to determine what their next course of action should be.
Jim Thompson, president of Gibraltar Design did preliminary research on several areas the board wanted to address and came up with rough estimates over how much certain improvements would cost.
The biggest project would be on the roof of Roachdale Elementary. The roof requires a lot of attention and is leaking in the main hallway. But because of several details, including parts of the roof that had recently been replaced and other new sections, a comprehensive financial estimate was not given. The board has the choice of updating the entire roof or ignoring the newer sections.
"There are things that, if you don't do, we believe will continue to damage your investment," Thompson said.
The North Putnam Middle School roof may need help down the line, but it will still be good for at least three to four more years, Thompson said.
Thompson also went over the HVAC systems. The overall cost of HVAC improvements throughout the school system would be roughly $2 million.
Some of the improvements would include installing energy efficient boilers in the elementary schools, along with the technology required to utilize the system fully, and a new chilling system in the middle and high school.
But before any decisions on this can be made, the school must collect data on its current energy usage . Then it can determine how worthwhile it would be to replace the system, Thompson said.
The board also had to approve the right to appropriate money from the Rainy Day Fund. Though it was not spending any money at the meeting, and agreed not to do so except for emergencies, it had to approve an appropriation that already happened because of legal reasons and general procedure.
The newer board members not active when the money was first taken from the fund, particularly John Hays and Oliver Haste, asked several questions regarding why this money was already taken out and why the board was appropriating the original amount.
"We want to make very sure we have the money we think we have," said superintendent Dr. Mary Sugg Lovejoy.
The motion to appropriate passed with a vote of 5-2, Hays and Haste voting against.
The date of graduation was changed from May 28 to June 4. Because of the bad weather a few weeks ago, the school is still making up days and instruction must continue to May 31, and the state does not want classes to continue past the graduation date. The board also had to redo an accepted motion from January's meeting. John Moore originally sent in a letter of resignation to the board, which was approved to be effective at the end of the school year. However, Moore made a mistake, actually meaning to retire. The board reversed this and approved his retirement 7-0.