The Dansville Board of Education is mulling over how it should proceed with spending more than $500,000 remaining from a fully state-funded construction project.
Horseheads-based Hunt Engineers presented the board with their recommendations Aug. 24.
The EXCEL construction project was 2008. As part of the $3 million project, the district used a portion of its allotted Expanding Our Children’s Education and Learning (EXCEL) grant, which was a one-time gift from the state to school districts strictly for education technology, health and safety, accessibility, physical capacity expansion and school construction or energy upgrades.
The district used their grant money to offset what would have been the local tax share for the project.
DCS is looking at how to use the remainder of this money, plus another $309,753 leftover from the previous EXCEL project. The two figures added together total $559,481.
Buildings and Grounds Superintendent Paul Sick said that due to the current economic climate, the district is not proposing to use the remainder of the EXCEL money to offset another large project. Instead, they are proposing to just use up the rest of the unexpended funds on necessary items within the state-mandated criteria.
Hunt’s recommends the Board look to spend the rest of the money on architectural, mechanical and electrical items: new floors in two middle school rooms, providing the district with lighting upgrades in the high school and elementary gyms; plus motion detectors, heating and cooling energy efficiency units and HVAC improvements throughout the district; ventilation improvements in the middle school corridors; a concrete pad on the outside entrance to the elementary school special education room; and new swing sets for the elementary school playground.
For the technology portion, Hunt is recommending upgrading the district’s phone system, installing more interactive classroom boards, security cameras, and new projectors and screens in the middle school and high school auditoriums.
After presenting this list to the board, Derek McManus, associate director of information technology for Hunt, went back to the beginning of the list in order to explain the problem and solution for the reoccurring middle school floor failure.
In 2001, the school’s wooden floor was replaced with vinyl tile and underlayment. By 2007, however, cracking was reported in two rooms of the 1936 addition. In 2008, a better underlayment was placed but this year, the same failure was found again.
Deciding to get to the bottom of the issue, literally, Hunt discovered through boring samples that the floor’s 1936 concrete deck was cracking, causing the vinyl to crack.
Although epoxy crack injection could fix the problem, McMannus is recommending replacing the entire floor since it would be more cost effective.
The board is expected to vote on approving the proposed updates next month. If approved, work could begin next summer.
