Columbia Public Schools working to identify improvements at schools
Nia Hinson
COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)
Columbia Public Schools is working to get a handle on work that needs to be completed within its schools.
The Long-Range Facilities Planning Committee met Tuesday afternoon to provide an update on its facility condition assessment. CPS narrowed down each facility’s needs into four categories: Immediate, critical, noncritical and deferred maintenance.
Immediate needs are identified as work that the school district needs to complete this school year, Chief Operating Officer Lazell Ofield said.
Ofield said a facility audit was completed on the building that identified fire and life and safety as the most immediate needs. Ofield said there are 17 buildings within the district that need work done that falls within that category. The buildings include elementary, middle and high schools within the district.
“There’s opportunity in our electro closets to make sure that those conduits that go throughout the building, that the area around it is still tight,” Ofield said.
However, Ofield said the buildings have still passed the fire inspection and CPS is in compliance with all fire codes. He said CPS is looking to make the changes for an extra layer of safety.
Critical non-recurring projects refer to work such as weather-proofing walls or working to keep water from getting into buildings. Non-critical projects are one-time jobs that can include upgrading lights within buildings to LED lights or motion-censored lights.
Deferred maintenance is work that requires a full replacement, such as fixing roofs or updating floors within buildings. CPS has estimated that work would cost $150 million, but wouldn’t be completed for many years.
Board member April Ferrao said she didn’t find that number surprising.
“I think when you see the total at first, it’s like ‘wow’ but you have 42 buildings and we only have about $2-$3million each year from our funding that we use towards planned capital improvement,” Ferrao said. “There’s always things that are growing, or unexpected things that come, so I don’t think there’s anything that’s concerning to me. Even the amount, because like I said, over 10 years we’ve been focused on building buildings.”
The audit was conducted in 2018 by an outside vendor. Ofield said CPS is now hoping to comb through that audit and update it with work the district has already completed over the years since then. He said CPS is hoping to have that updated within the next couple of months.
“Based on the categories of the facility audit, we’re able to update our current facility audit with the work that we’ve already completed,” Ofield said.
The projects will be paid using the operation budget, Ofield said.
Ofield said the next steps include working with the facilities and construction team to begin building a package to identify the scope of the work and then sending out an RFP for vendors to bid on.
CPS will then share the updated information with the community and with building administrators, laying out the different categories and priorities, Ofield said.
CPS is also starting the planning process for its 10-year master plan. Ferrao said the district is slightly behind working on the plan, in part due to Ofield recently joining the board, after Randy Gooch retired last year.
Ferrao said the board is looking for the community’s involvement in the plan.
“This public school serves almost 19,000 students, it feeds people into our workforce. We’re one of the largest employers,” Ferrao said. “We want to have community input to help guide us in what is it that the community wants and I think it’s very important to have the teachers and the taxpayers involved in what does that plan look like.”