School district breaks down Capital Project needs ahead of December vote

During the November 16 Woodbury Town Board meeting, Patrick F. Cahill, the assistant superintendent for business and management services for the Monroe-Woodbury School District, delivered a presentation concerning the upcoming Capital Project referendum. The referendum is currently scheduled for Tuesday, December 5, at Central Valley Elementary School. The polls will be open from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. New York State public school districts require residents in the district to approve capital projects, which is why residents need to come out and vote for projects such as this one.

When The Photo News asked Mr. Cahill why the vote was scheduled for December instead of the traditional May timeframe, he said, “A capital project referendum can occur during the May budget vote or at another time of the year based on the preference and decision of the Board of Education. A separate vote for a capital referendum apart from the May budget vote enhances our ability to clarify the issue at hand and allows the community to focus exclusively on the question of the capital project. In the case of Monroe-Woodbury C.S.D., the May vote typically includes the following items to be voted on: the district budget, a bus purchase proposition, and at least three Board of Education vacancies to be filled by candidates running for the school board.”

The Capital Project, if executed, will cost the district $98 million and impact all seven school buildings, as well as four to five non-instructional buildings. Cahill said the referendum will allow the school district to “literally do work in almost every facility, every school, and every building the district has with zero tax impact.” The assistant superintendent explained that there are three factors that enable the district to do this. First, the district will get back 70 cents for every dollar spent from New York State’s reimbursement program for school districts. Second, the school board and district staff have long planned for this moment, with Cahill telling the Woodbury Town Board that the school district has been saving surplus money to help cover the expense. Up to $24 million dollars of this project will be covered from the Capital Reserve. Finally, for voters who want to know why this referendum took so long to be brought forward, the district wanted to wait until some previous debt came off the books. This includes bonds for projects at the middle school and high school, which has now happened.

According to the presentation, 80% of the $98 million expenditure will cover replacing boilers and heating ventilations, replacing roofs at four schools and the education center, and new fire alarms and public address systems for every school building. During the Monroe-Woodbury Board of Education Meeting earlier this month, and again during the Woodbury Town Board meeting, Assistant Superintendent Cahill stated that the boilers were “well past their useful life.” This includes the one at Pine Tree Elementary, which is over 60 years old. There had previously been issues at Pine Tree involving the boiler, which Cahill described to The Photo News thusly: “Last year we experienced a significant steam leak in one of the three boilers. The malfunctioning boiler was taken offline and remained inoperable for over a week as a repair was initiated. We caught a break with mild temperatures which enabled us to heat the building with only two boilers. More recently, we experienced steam leaks this past weekend at Pine Tree and at other times since the heat was turned on for the current heating season.”

He added, “The boilers at Pine Tree and the other district buildings are functioning and operable but past their useful life. The useful life of the boilers and other building systems has been extended through regular and consistent preventive maintenance programs. These programs have extended the life of these assets and saved the district money, but the time has come to replace the outdated building systems.” He said many of these systems, such as the boilers, are original to the buildings and continuing to repair these failing systems is like “throwing good money after bad” because they continue to break down and remain unreliable and less efficient than newer systems.

“Furthermore, this approach, to repair rather than replace mechanical systems, fails to take advantage of the New York State Building Aid program, where M-W is entitled to 70% reimbursement for capital project expenses. There is no state aid or reimbursement for repair expenses. By not addressing the problem in a more proactive and permanent way, we also risk catastrophic failures, like loss of heat in winter, which would render our schools unusable. In your own home certain items like the roof, boiler and hot water heater, periodically need to be replaced...the same is true of our school buildings.”

A complete list of Capital Project fixes can be found on the school district website.