A $12.1 million capital improvement project at Le Roy Central Schools is running under budget, and district officials are looking at adding three more tasks to the to-do list, Superintendent Merritt Holly told trustees at their meeting Tuesday night.
Officials will seek bids on:
- Replacing heat pumps at Wolcott School and the Jr./Sr. high school;
- Replacing curtains in the theaters at both schools; and,
- Replacing switchgear in the Lapp Building.
"So those are the three areas that we've kicked back to CPL (civil engineer firm in Rochester), to get a design in on those, so that again, if we have money left over, then we have designs set in place to get into SED (State Education Department) to get approval," Holly said. "If you notice those fit in very close to what we went out with before, which was heating, cooling, and those type of items, not glamorous stuff that people are going to see but stuff that we know we need to run our buildings and protect our assets."
The curtains in the theaters have been in place since the theaters were constructed, Holly said. The immediate need is to spray them with fire retardant, but they've also reached the end of their useful life, he said. They're falling apart and should be replaced rather than just treated one more time.
Construction on many of the items in the capital improvement project will begin this spring.
Among the items at Wolcott School:
- Convert heating controls to electronic
- Reconstruct the building's parapet
- Replace the roof
- Precast window and sill reconstruction
- Replace exterior windows
- Stair tread replacement
The construction will impact the Oatka Festival in July with construction equipment and fencing blocking some of the area used by the festival in past years for vendors. Holly said he's met with Oatka organizers to go over options for a new site plan for the event.
COVID Update
Holly also gave the board an update on COVID testing and protocols.
Beginning March 7, "test to stay" tests will be administered "right before school," Holly said.
Currently, tests are offered from 7 a.m. to 8:30 a.m each day.
We'll do it before school because numbers have dropped," Holly said. "If numbers come back up again, after break or whatever, we're prepared to go back (to testing) in the morning. But right now, we can handle everything that we need to just before school."
Recently, the district handed out 64 at-home tests to parents and community members.
State Audit
Up to a half-dozen auditors from the NYS Comptrollers Office will be in Le Roy, or some working remotely, for an audit of the district.
The Comptrollers office routinely audits every government agency in the state.
"Just remember with an audit, they're not going to tell you the good things that are going on," Holly said. "It's going to be just things that obviously procedure-wise, it can be improved."
Officials have not provided the district with a precise date the audit will begin, but Holly said he expects the audit sometime in the spring, before the end of the school year.
"This is the first one I've had during my tenure here," Holly said.
Photo: Via Le Roy Central School District capital improvement project presentation.
