By Suzanne Baker sbaker@stmedianetwork.com April 24, 2014 8:17PM

Students enter the main door at Longwood Elementary School in Naperville. The Indian Prairie School Board is wrestling with a consultant's estimate that it will cost $3.2 million over the next 20 years for general upkeep of the school because Longwood is only one of 33 schools in the district. | Suzanne Baker ~ Sun-Times Media

storyidforme: 65384007 tmspicid: 23385358 fileheaderid: 11414386

Updated: April 25, 2014 10:08AM

Indian Prairie School District 204 Board members initially appeared a bit shell-shocked after finding out it could cost the district $176 million over the next two decades for needed school maintenance work.

Board members are wrestling with the cost of fixing district facilities against the cost of reducing class sizes, providing air conditioning, and other issues facing the district.

District 204, which experienced a building boom in the 1990s, now is looking at the cost of general facility repairs or replacements at the schools that are turning around 20 years old.

To help the district determine the urgency of the repairs, the district hired consultant EMG Inc. to perform a facility assessment of the districts 33 schools and administration building.

Jay Strang, assistant superintendent for business, said setting aside money for maintenance has not been a priority in recent years.

We have deferred maintenance over the last four to five years to deal with the difficult economic times, and we are running into a situation where some of our bigger systems our roofing systems, our HVAC systems need some attention and that will be a priority, Strang said.

Original post:
As its facilities get older, District 204 weighs the price of repairs

Repairs and other improvements estimated to cost $3.6 million will be made to Oswego School District buildings and facilities later this year.

School district board members authorized school administrators Monday evening to seek bids for the work on 13 projects estimated to cost just over $3.6 million.

The 13 items were culled by Superintendent Dr. Matthew Wendt from a list of 17 items prepared by school officials earlier this month and presented to board members at their March 31 board meeting.

The original list was prioritized in March by members of the Citizens Advisory Facility and Planning Committee and presented to the board for discussion.

Wendt said he and other staff members reviewed the committee recommendations and made some changes so they could lower the cost and have the most needed repairs done.

The original list included repairs, upgrades and replacements in schools, buildings, and other areas in the district estimated at $7.8 million by Mike Barr, director of facility construction and development; Bill Baumann, director of operations; and Pat Dacy, assistant director of facility construction and development. They conducted an evaluation of all property in the district, which was submitted to the committee for review and recommendation.

The three toured each building and met with the administrators and building engineers at each school, to survey their conditions.

They also received assistance from engineers, architects, and contractors in preparing a list of major needs and concerns for each building.

The 13 projects left on the final list that the district will seek bids for include replacing the chiller at The Wheatlands Elementary School, 2290 Barrington Drive West, Aurora. This unit provides chilled water to the HVAC systems throughout the building and is a backup to the existing boiler chiller. The cost is estimated to be $625,000, and would take 10 weeks to complete.

The chiller at Fox Chase Elementary School at 260 Fox Chase Drive North, Oswego, will be replaced with a high efficiency oil-free centrifugal chiller at a cost of $450,000. It will take 10 weeks to complete.

Original post:
School repair, improvement bids sought

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Repairs, upgrades and replacements in Oswego School District buildings and other facilities could cost nearly $8 million, school district board members were advised this past week.

A list of prioritized projects prepared by members of the district's Citizens Advisory Facility and Planning Committee was submitted to the board for discussion.

The total cost for all the projects was estimated at $7.8 million by Mike Barr, director of facility construction and development; Bill Baumann, director of operations; and Pat Dacy, assistant director of facility construction and development. They conducted an evaluation of all property in the district, which was submitted to the committee for review and recommendation.

The school district operates a total of 22 schools.

The three officials toured each building and met with the administrators and building engineers at each school, to survey conditions.

They also received assistance from engineers, architects, and contractors in preparing a list of major needs and concerns for each building.

Officials said the district has $7.2 million in funds remaining from past construction projects.

They include projects from 2007 through 2013 that came in under budget, and a balance from bonds sold for the recently completed additions to the district's two high schools.

Superintendent Dr. Matthew Wendt said he and other staff members reviewed the committee's recommendations and trimmed the list to 13 projects with an anticipated cost of $3.6 million.

Board member Greg O'Neil said he was opposed to using the remaining funds from the high school addition projects for repairs to other facilities.

The rest is here:
Committee lists $7.8M in school facility upgrades

Commercial building energy efficiency retrofits will surpass US$127 billion in annual market value by 2023, says firm

Press release, April 7; Alex Wolfgram, DIGITIMES[Tuesday 8 April 2014]

Residential and commercial buildings account for 35-40% of total energy consumption worldwide. Commercial buildings, in particular, consume large amounts of energy related to heating/ventilation/air conditioning (HVAC), lighting, water heating, and other building systems. Efforts to reduce energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions have led to increasing deployments of energy efficiency retrofits for commercial and public buildings. According to a new report from Navigant Research, the worldwide market for energy efficiency retrofits in commercial and public buildings will grow from US$68.2 billion in 2014 to US$127.5 billion by 2023.

"Because the existing building stock dwarfs the amount of new building space being added on an annual basis, energy efficiency retrofits are a critical pathway to greening the world's commercial buildings," said Eric Bloom, principal research analyst with Navigant Research. "Enrollment in voluntary green building certification programs has been on the rise around the world, even as regulatory and policy measures in a growing number of regions provide strong support for energy efficiency retrofits."

One key question within the building retrofit industry is the initial reason or motivator for pursuing energy efficiency retrofits. The vast majority of building owners and managers who decide to complete an energy efficiency retrofit are motivated primarily by system replacements rather than the motivation to improve efficiency, the report said. Navigant Research added that it estimates approximately 15% of all energy efficiency retrofits are initiated with increasing energy efficiency as the primary motivator, while the remaining 85% of energy efficiency retrofits are initiated for other reasons.

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Commercial building energy efficiency retrofits will surpass US$127 billion in annual market value by 2023, says firm

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Ed Ruping/ The Chronicle

By Jessica J. Saggio | April 09, 2014

Taking on the tax is a series that will break down the penny sales tax issues specific to East Seminole County, schools and to those opposed. The county takes a vote on the issue in a special election on May 20. Voters will decide whether the county will raise sales tax from 6 percent to 7 percent, generating about $63.1 million annually for the next 10 years.

An SCPS history lesson

Seminole County Public Schools are no stranger to promoting a sales tax.

A look back into 2001 and 2010 shows that this isn't the first time the school system has toiled with the tax at hand, and neither have voters. Needing the funds for integral projects, school officials say they have desperately needed the sales tax funding as budgets continually are cut at the state level.

But before one delves into those tax issues, its important to note that the School Board wasn't always involved. In 1991, voters passed a sales tax referendum generating about $360 million in sales tax revenue. The school system wasn't yet on board with a portion of the revenue.

But in 2001, the tide changed as the School Board jumped on board with the idea of a sales tax referendum. Voters again passed the sales tax with a 72 percent majority. According to county documents, the tax generated $590 million, with 25 percent of that going to SCPS.

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Taking on the tax part 1: Schools

Bellevue College recently received a $410,000 grant from the Washington State Department of Commerce Energy Efficiency and Solar Grants program to construct an 83KW solar photo-voltaic array on the roof of the R building on the main Bellevue campus. The DOC also awarded the college an additional $195,000 for campuswide energy efficiency upgrades.

The new solar array will be a large addition to an existing 7KW system and could generate enough electricity to power up to 70 percent of the building electric load on a sunny summer afternoon or an estimated 85,737 KwH per year.

These awards come on top of $2 million in grant funding awarded to Bellevue College in the last two grant cycles from the DOC for energy efficiency projects including campuswide lighting and water retrofits, HVAC controls, campus equipment replacements or repairs, energy meters for all buildings and the Building Dashboard, a system allowing visitors to see real-time data on energy use on campus by building.

The grants awarded to Bellevue College are part of the first conferred under the DOCs 2013-2015 Energy Efficiency and Solar Grants program. The agency announced grant awards to five higher education institutions, 27 local governments and four state agencies in March 2014.

Read more from the original source:
Bellevue College awarded $605,000 in Department of Commerce funding

Lori Wolfe/The Herald-Dispatch

Culloden Elementary School students and staff are supplied with plenty of bottled water as they return to school on Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2014, in Culloden.

Mar. 30, 2014 @ 11:04 AM

HUNTINGTON -- More than $100 million in construction projects have been completed in the eight years since a $65.4 million bond was approved by Cabell County voters, and school officials are now working to complete at least three more major projects costing $18 million before 2016.

Now that bond-affiliated projects are completed, Cabell County Schools officials have started to check off items from their new to-do list, which is created largely from the county's Comprehensive Educational Facilities Plan, or CEFP.

In the plan is a renewed focus on the county's elementary schools, with the immediate emphasis falling on Culloden Elementary School and an "expeditionary learning" incubator school that will come from the consolidation of Peyton and Geneva Kent elementary schools.

The CEFP that guides the school system's project choices was adopted by the school board in 2010, and it serves as a road map for the next 10 years of operation.

It includes assessments and infrastructure needs of each Cabell County Schools facility, said Mike O'Dell, assistant superintendent of operations.

The opening of Huntington East Middle School in January ended the CEFP's emphasis on middle schools and instead turned it toward elementary schools, some of which are the oldest buildings in the county school system, O'Dell said.

"That's not to say we are going to neglect middle schools and high schools," O'Dell said. "It's not just for construction of new schools. It's also used to determine what work needs to be done on existing schools -- windows, roofs, air conditioning and heating -- things like that."

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Cabell continues school construction

By Al Everson BEACON STAFF WRITER

posted Mar 26, 2014 - 11:20:37am

The Volusia County School Board and its allies are going all out to build support for continuing the half-cent local-option sales tax for schools.

Just a little more than five months remain before Volusia County residents will vote on the tax in the Aug. 26 primary, and the campaign for the voters hearts and minds has already begun.

We want to provide a quality education system, Superintendent Margaret Smith said.

Smith said tourists can help area residents do that.

Generally, about 35 percent of that tax is paid by visitors, she said.

Smith and School Board members are trying to get out the word about the sales-tax referendum when they speak before business and civic organizations. The School Board gave its blessing but no money to the creation of a political-action committee to press for passage of the tax proposition.

That PAC, Citizens for Excellent Schools, bears the same name of the organization that worked for the 2001 school sales-tax referendum. Citizens for Excellent Schools may raise private funds for the campaign to get out the vote to continue the tax.

The politics of education

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Volusia County School Board hopes to sell plan to put your tax dollars to work