BUCKLAND — The Mohawk Trail Regional School District will once again conduct a long-range study on the status of its buildings, given that it’s been 13 years since such an analysis has been conducted.
At the time, the four buildings (Buckland-Shelburne Elementary School, Colrain Central School, Sanderson Academy in Ashfield and Mohawk Trail Regional School) were all considered to be in good-to-fair condition.
“[This] was looking at the facilities and the buildings and anticipated capital needs and projects,” Mohawk Trail Regional School District Business Administrator William Lataille said of the study 13 years ago. “It was a deep dive. We know that needs to be done again; it’s very evident.”
The original 2013 study was conducted by Potomac Capital Advisors. Budge Litchfield, a member of the Building Subcommittee, said this report is the documentation that the subcommittee uses at its meetings.
Now, Lataille said, the district has put out a bid for a comprehensive assessment and long-range capital analysis.
“This ties in with the sustainability and feasibility in the sense that this information needs to be done, and it’s a good way to look at what our buildings are going to need and what’s going to happen, regardless of what happens with sustainability and feasibility,” Lataille said, referencing the proposal to consolidate all district schools to a single campus in Buckland. “If that doesn’t go through, then this study is even more important. If it does go through, this will get wrapped into that … and then we can go from there.”
Lataille said he would expect that the study, at a minimum, would probably fall in the range of $100,000 to $150,000.
“We can’t afford to take that out of the budget, so that’s going to be a capital request to the towns,” Lataille explained. “We just want to get this out now so that we get the bid, and we’re very clear to the bidders that it’s not going to take place until July.”
Lataille said these capital requests would appear on Annual Town Meeting warrants. He added that there may be questions from the towns on how payment for these capital expenditures will be apportioned, with some member towns having schools and others not.
“That’s something we’ll look at and we’ll figure out how we need to do that,” Lataille said. “But I think the first part is to just get the bid out there because of the timeline for it and then get it back.”
Following this discussion, Litchfield said an updated study will not only be beneficial for the district, but for the member towns as well.
“If towns are going to be in the position of building reuse, having this information would be really, really important,” Litchfield said, referencing the possibility of school closures and the subsequent repurposing of the former schools under the single-campus idea. “Having that balanced picture of, ‘What is the actual status of your building?’ Regardless of what happens five years out, [it’s] going to be very important.”
Heating system leak
Later on in Lataille’s finance report, he shared that over the weekend of Indigenous Peoples Day, as the heating system was being tested before Oct. 15 when it was slated to be turned on, glycol began leaking from the pipes.
While this issue was eventually solved, Lataille said the repairs spanned multiple days and involved two different crews. While he hasn’t gotten the bill for the repairs yet, he said he “would be shocked if it comes in under [$15,000].”
“They were major leaks in the pipes that carry the glycol to the heaters,” Lataille said. “They had their hands full, and they were here all day Friday working on the system, and trying to get the system up and running.”
Lataille said these leaks occurred because the pipes started to expand as the heat was being turned on. He explained that during the summer, when the heating system is shut off, the pipes tend to contract with minimal pressure.
Although the system was believed to be functioning properly on Friday, a “major leak” was discovered on Saturday, Lataille said.
“They had to deal with that over the weekend,” he said, “and then on Monday … we had plumbers scheduled to go to other buildings but we had to pull them all back here.”
This could be classified as an emergency capital expenditure, according to Lataille, who compared it to the hot water heater that the district needed to replace in 2021.
“Once we get the bills and everything’s itemized and we look at it,” Lataille said, “then I’ll come back and we’ll talk about the next steps.”
