County eyes big bleacher buy

New bleachers costing more than a third of a million dollars are top priority in the revised Madison County school system “wish list.”

Twenty projects totaling $12 million top the capital improvement plan (CIP) announced at an Oct. 26 joint Madison County School Board-Madison County Board of Supervisors meeting.

Most of the projects are school building-related upgrades. More than half the budget is for revamping heating-air conditioning systems or fixing leaky roofs.

The top five projects in order of priority and their projected cost include:

*Installing new bleachers around Eddie Dean Field at Booster Park (Madison County High School’s football stadium), as well as bleachers at the MCHS track and bleachers at Waverly Yowell Elementary School’s softball field. The estimated cost is $360,500.

*Replacing law enforcement vehicles on a two-year cycle, as needed, using lease purchase financing. The estimated cost is $702,774.

*Replacing the heating-air conditioning system and associated electrical power upgrades at Madison County High School. The estimated cost is $2.1 million.

*Replacing a roof at Madison County High School. The estimated cost is $505,000.

*Replacing exterior windows and doors at Madison County High School. The estimated cost is $309,000.

School board members-supervisors asked the representatives from the Charlottesville-based consulting firm Crabtree, Rohrbaugh and Associates to come up with a $6 million plan, an $8 million plan and a $10 million plan.

“There is a cost associated with doing nothing in terms of extra energy costs, extra maintenance to antiquated equipment, the shortened life cycle of our technology components,” School Board Vice Chairman James Nelson said. “You add all this up -- that’s real money. That is a savings that automatically comes along with addressing these issues particularly the roof and HVAC and the lighting for that matter. It’s all energy.”

The county has already checked off many things from the capital improvement plan like a digital technology upgrade.

“The county is moving in the right direction,” Hal Hart, director of operations for Crabtree, Rohrbaugh and Associates Architects, told county officials at the meeting. “This is a short-term and long-term planning tool for the county to use. Financing has to kick in for this to work.”

The upgrades to expand the high school’s cafeteria, renovating its existing auditorium, building a new auditorium and converting the library were on the list but did not have a five-year projected cost. School board member Martin Boone wanted to know why.

Hart answered, “After discussion in the committee level, it was decided that until some of these major CIP items could be taken care of, those items were definitely on the radar screen in the five-plus year category, so we bumped them out with an ‘X’ and took the dollar value off.”

Boone wanted to know if there was anything not on the list that was on the horizon beyond five years.

Hart said no unless there was growth in the county and officials had to add onto current buildings.

Supervisor Jerry Butler wanted to know what type of roof should replace the existing trouble-prone PUF (polyurethane foam) roofs on county buildings. Hart said rubber roofs are preferable and that PUF roofs are a “ticking (time) bomb.”

Supervisors Chairman James Arrington said he wanted to know more about replacing the interior lighting at Madison County High School and how far away they were from LED lighting. Officials said LED lighting was “cost prohibitive” for interior lighting but they are looking at doing it on exterior lighting.

Supervisor Eddie Dean asked if there was enough “green value” for these types of projects for a grant. The consulting firm officials said they would look into it.

Dean also wanted to know projections of energy savings. Officials said that once they pick an engineer they would crunch those numbers. 

“When I look at this list my feeling is, it is not if we do these, it is when we do these,” Dean said. “There is no doubt they have to be done. But we also have to operate the county and have people support this. I think this county has to take an aggressive stance and make some decisions to maintain. We got to stop putting our finger in the dyke or pulling out a piece of baling twine.”

Supervisor Pete Elliott said he thought the school system’s heating-air conditioning, roofing and electrical needs were the greatest.

“The goal here is not to increase our debt service and that is what we are looking at,” Elliott said. “An amount of money that doesn’t increase our debt service and that way we don’t have to raise taxes to be able to do this if we keep our debt service the same. That’s the key we have to sell this to the public.”