At its last 2022 meeting in mid-December, the Capital Planning and Investment Committee discussed the schools’ capital requests for fiscal 2024, which included several large maintenance projects for the Bromfield School. In those requests, Superintendent Linda Dwight and the School Committee emphasized the importance of maintaining the 60-year-old school to “ensure that the building remains current and operational for many years to come.”
Replacing Bromfield’s HVAC units
The largest request is for $3 million to replace 40 HVAC units at Bromfield. The building’s current units range from 22 to 25 years old, while the industry life expectancy for them is 20 years, according to the request form.
Over the past three years, the town has approved three allocations of $150,000—a total of $450,000—toward replacing a few HVAC units each year. But, Dwight told the committee, contractors have not been willing to bid on replacing just a few units. Either there were no responses or the bids were far above the amount budgeted.
Last year, Town Administrator Tim Bragan pointed out that replacing three or four units a year is more expensive in the long run than doing the job all at once. So this year the schools are seeking the much larger amount to replace all the old units. Dwight said the previous appropriations would be rolled into the whole project.
Other requests focus on renovations
Last year CPIC and voters approved $150,000 for renovating the Bromfield boys’ locker room, and this year the schools are requesting the same amount for the girls’ locker room. Facilities Director Patrick Harrigan and his staff can do this work in house, Dwight said. The locker room needs new partitions, plumbing fixtures, and flooring.
In another project that began last year, the schools are requesting $130,000 to continue replacing the old floors in Bromfield, where tiles are cracking and coming loose from the subfloor. That work, too, would be done in house by Harrigan’s team, keeping the cost lower than using an outside contractor, Dwight and Harrigan told CPIC. The schools expect to continue this work in fiscal 2025.
In the Bromfield gym, $150,000 in fiscal 2024 would go toward painting the walls and the ceiling and replacing the decades-old, damaged curtain that divides the gym so two classes can use it at the same time. This project can’t be done in house, Dwight said, because the painting requires special equipment such as lifts.
The schools are also asking for $230,000 to replace about 350 Bromfield hall lockers that are rusty or broken. The company that installs the new lockers would recycle the metal lockers that are removed.
The only capital request from the schools that was not related to Bromfield’s maintenance was for a 15-passenger electric van and charging station, expected to cost up to $100,000. The van would transport students for after-school sports and club events, reducing the use of Dee Bus Service. Keeping the van capacity below 16 passengers means no special licensing would be required for the driver.
CPIC Chair Nate Finch said he had been shocked to learn that using Dee could cost as much as $500 a trip for an away game. But committee member Don Ludwig suggested it was a little early to consider an electric vehicle.
Estimates versus bids
CPIC’s main issue with several of the schools requests was that the expected costs were based on Harrigan’s estimates, rather than on actual quotes from suppliers and contractors. Dwight and Harrigan responded that contractors are reluctant to quote prices for projects that are “subject to appropriations”—that is, for which funding has not yet been approved.
“Everyone else seems able to get quotes,” Finch said at one point, and he urged the schools to send out requests for proposals (RFPs) and obtain bids, particularly for the gym painting and the HVAC project.
The meeting ended with Dwight agreeing to make further efforts to get responses to RFPs on several projects and to come back to the capital committee with more detailed cost information.
While this process may delay CPIC’s decisions, Finch did not see that as a problem. “I actually think it’s good to push off our votes this year,” he said, “because there are a lot of big requests, … and we may need some more meetings just to do a more detailed plan of spending.” The committee’s next meeting was scheduled for Thursday, Jan. 12.
