001[music] like to call to meeting order. Roll call. Miss Katz, Miss Nyman >> here, >> Miss Scott >> here, >> Mr. Brad Upgrove >> here, >> Mr. Roger Uptogrove >> here, >> Mr. Zawatada >> here. >> Mr. Brophie >> here. >> Miss Droof >> present. >> Mr. Penerella >> here. >> Eight present. >> Let's rise for a pledge of allegiance and a moment of silence. [clears throat] To the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, liberty and justice for all. >> [clears throat] >> She's in the second. >> Sure. >> No one signed up for public comment period number one, which leads us to discussion. >> So, good evening everyone. Thank you for joining us here at our committee meeting for facilities.
002We do have two items on the agenda for this evening to review. One of which is um an item that uh was discussed uh two months ago. We wanted to bring this back to the board to have a further discussion. So I'm going to invite Mr. Bramble, director of facilities to the podium, share a little bit about um these two items and enter into discussion with the board. Okay. The first item is uh First item is the uh repair of number two chiller at the senior high school. Uh this has already been discussed. Um it's the description of the repair is the same as it was before. Um, Johnson Controls will come in, they'll remove the old motor, send it out. If they have a new motor at their factory or a newly rebuilt motor,
003we'll get that one. If not, they will rebuild ours and send it back. Uh, and they'll put all new gaskets, install the motor, pressure test the chiller. Now, what they will do is start it up. They call it dummy loading just to get it to run. And then we'll take it out of service for the winter. And when they do the seasonal start up in the spring, that's when our 12-month warranty will start. So, we'll still have 12 full months of coverage. and the um price they agreed to hold, that's the price that they originally gave us, the 99,545. So, we won't lose any of the warranty period, and we haven't experienced the price increase that they've put into effect. Anybody have any questions about that? Yes. Is that price um the 12-month warranty going
004to be put in writing that won't start until spring? >> Yes. >> Because I'm not taking any chances anymore. >> Oh, no. They definitely I in fact I have an email from our representative that the warranty period won't start until the chiller started up. >> Well, I'd like to see that to make sure. So, I think one of the things as a board we we can do is enter in and and we could enter into um Mr. Bramble with them, give a um get this in writing as a quote, get the service agreement warranty. With regard to that, we can bring this back and we could share this then back with the board. Um what we're we're asking for this this evening is an opportunity to bring this to you at a future legislative meeting.
005Um no doubt the November legislative meeting to move forward and recommend for approval so that we can really get this moving in terms of um its repair and making sure that we we have this in place for the spring when uh when we really are going to need this. >> Okay. >> Great. All right, we will do that. And well, that that's the the chiller. It nothing's been taken apart yet. Second item is the number two chiller on the roof of Middle School West. It's an air cooled chiller, not a water cooled chiller. Um the variable frequency drive for one of the fans failed and also there's a failed compressor heater which maintains the temperature of the oil so the chiller can run and also these were all found on the Johnson controls PM. Also
006there's leaks in circuits number one and two. So, what they propose to do is replace the failed VFD, replace the failed heater, uh repair the leaks, they'll put in the proper charge, and um the total cost for this is 57,7469. Again, we have that quote in writing. Uh now for for this because it's a repair the parts which would be the VFD and the compressor heater have a one-year warranty but the labor is only 90 days. So we'll have a one-year warranty on the parts which will take us all the way through the upcoming cooling season and uh 90-day warranty on the labor to repair it. And um chiller number one is fine. It's still in service. Uh any questions about >> spray? Can you re review for the board? Take us through what what
007what how was this diagnosed? When was it found? Who identified it? Was this in a regular service? Uh >> yeah, it was found on our regular inspection PM that was performed in midepptember and then we got the report. um after the PM was done and they had identified the failed components. So as a board um again we wanted to bring this to your attention. It has substantial dollars to it. Um this would come out of our general budget as it is a repair. With regard to that we did check with Mr. lens um does believe that we certainly um should should and could move forward with this. Um is this something that Mr. Bramble will they do similar startups with regard to this uh once the repair is done before they again put it kind
008of to sleep for the balance of the fall and winter? >> Yes. Yeah. They'll do a a startup to check it and then as you said it'll be put to sleep for the winter and when they come in in the spring to do our startup then what we our plan is to run number one or I'm sorry number two probably for the chillers are on an alternating controller so one chiller runs for the period of time then the next chiller but we'll put some extra run on number two to make sure that everything's good. And then we'll go back to the rotating schedule. >> Quick question. Due to the cost 57,000, why [clears throat] does this come out of capital instead of coming out of the general fund? So it's >> so it's a repair
009um so [clears throat] we have money in um general operating funds designated specifically for repairs. So that was um the initial thought for this. It wasn't um necessarily anticipated. Um it came up as Mr. Bramble said during um a service uh piece there. We normally treat expenditures like this as repairs from operating. >> It definitely rises to the threshold. It's just the piece that you budget within your general operating budget for repairs on various equipment. >> Got another 100,000 on the one previous to this. >> There were also is coming out of general Sounds like a lot of money coming out of general fund. >> No, the other was a cap is a capital. Yeah, correct. Yeah, that that was planned capital. Um and we had presented that back last spring. >> I misunderstood. Yeah.
010But like [snorts] I say, this is So I don't understand what's the difference. Tell me again why one would be >> Well, Matt, you want to give the clean version of >> I don't but I don't understand why one would qualify and not the other one. Well, it's not that they don't both qualify for capital and that we've budgeted for repair maintenance throughout the district, most especially as it relates to mechanical systems, which are often things that um will need repair and are found through time um so forth. So, we have budgeted for these types of repairs in that we're suggesting that we be accurate with that and and take that from that. The other capital was that we knew we had a down chill or we knew it was a motor. We knew it
011was going to have to be a rebuild or a complete replacement. So we had projected that to come out of the capital which it qualified for as well. So from a technical standpoint as Mr. Broofphy was was sharing both could essentially come out of capital. We're we're saying that we're recommending that we utilize this out of the general fund since it's been budgeted for issues to capitalize. >> Yeah. >> Thank you, >> Mr. Bramble. Anything else you want to share? Anything else with systems? The newer chiller at East that was that was put in last spring. Things are >> that's running fine. That'll be coming out of warranty this summer and we'll add that to the Johnson Controls proposal. because the uh agreement for the other chillers uh at West and um Bash will also
012be up. So, we'll add that to the proposal to have all the chillers under the service plan. And we just finished our heating conversion. Um everything um is running. We have a few hiccups uh when equipment's been sitting all summer, but um as a general statement, every building has heat and um everything's running. >> Any other questions from the board facilities? Miss Diamond, >> are we prepared for Boyertown Elementary in case there's any issues over there since it's been it's had issues in the past for heat? >> Yes. Yeah. Everything. There was only one classroom when we started up 141 I believe that didn't have heat and that was pre repaired late last week. So everything is running. Yes. Thank you. I'll go ahead, Mr. >> Is there a new schedule for everything that hasn't
013been done yet? I'm sure we have a backlog of work orders or anything major coming up. I mean, we're not hearing nothing. >> No, directed towards >> the only thing major coming up u well the major thing is the Bordon Town L renovation project, >> right? But I mean all the work orders and everything. Yeah, there's nothing. >> No major work orders. There's a lot of repairs. Um we'll be starting the uh replacement of the steps at transportation. Those are deteriorated. That's supposed to start if the weather holds out on Friday. Um and then following that there's some concrete work at Colbrookale that will happen um over Thanksgiving break. And other than that, um, normal operations and maintenance. >> Nothing at Gilbert'sville. >> There's no repairs. >> Yeah, there are. Yeah, I just got a
014proposal back for the stairs at Gilbert'sville. Also, the ones that have the cones in front of them, kindergarten entrance. >> Okay, Mr. off the top of your head just average work order completion typical. Do we have a percentage work orders in work orders completed on a weekly basis? How's that being diagnosed? I don't have a a percent off the top of my head. It runs about 40% right now, but I'm down um two people because the courier is on vacation for two weeks. So, one of the maintenance mechanics is doing the courier job and um uh one of our carpenters has been on vacation. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Thank you, Mr. Brown. >> Public comment period number two. Miss Savage committee meetings. >> I think this is on. >> Yes. >> Okay. >> Um
015I'd like to expand upon part of my comment about committees made at the last board meeting. I stated there was a near complete lapse in committee meetings from 2022 to 2024 and only at Dr. David Heiser's urging in 2025 did the board return to the practice of conducting these meetings. Um so board president Panerello commented at the last meeting saying we fixed it but I still question why this lapse happened in the first place. The board president and the committee leads certainly knew about their roles in making these meetings happen. It's normal schoolboard procedure and I'm certain they knew this given that all board members are required by the state to take schoolboard director training and they certify that they have done so. Committees give the board the opportunity to discuss and deliberate important issues
016which they are required to do in public. So if the public doesn't see discussion and deliberation, we must assume it's not happening. So the next step I'd like to see at these new committee meetings is board engagement. At the Education and Student Services Committee meeting two weeks ago, our administrators went to a huge effort to compile a presentation showing you how the district uses different types of assessment data and how the district is performing. The content was dense and it should have elicited a lot of probing questions, but there was only one board question following the presentation. So, here would have been my question for administration following that. It was wonderful to hear about the PEAS data showing strong growth in our students learning and it's good to know that we rank above state and
017national averages. But how are we doing in comparison to surrounding districts and what does that look like over time? To me, that's an important comparison because our local area school districts are similar in demographics and face similar challenges. So knowing if Boyertown's academic performances is exceeding or falling behind surrounding districts is an important indicator of success. I do hope to see that kind of data in future presentations and thanks for the presentations that you have made already. >> Mr. Savage, I just want to add that under the previous um committees, we were operating as a committee of the whole. We weren't operating as solo committees. That's why we weren't having solo committees meetings. It wasn't until that policy was altered that we started going back to this meetings. [snorts] So that brings us to our
018last item. The upcoming meeting, next meeting of our facilities committee will be hosted on January 27th here at 6:00 in front of our legislative meeting. >> Motion to adjurnn. >> I'll second.