Geneva D-304 OKs nearly $56M for 7-year capital improvement plan

GENEVA – The Geneva District 304 School Board unanimously approved spending more than $56 million in a seven-year capital improvement plan.

Facilities Operations Director Scott Ney presented the plan April 10, which involves surveying all the district’s buildings, prioritizing work based on cost, need and efficiencies and cost estimates for future projects.

“Looking through all the facilities, architects, engineers, myself – we keep track on a yearly basis of what issues that we have,” Ney said. “We document those and we follow up and we add these to the list.”

Items prioritized for the 2023-24 school year will cost almost $13 million.

These items include:

• Updating the HVAC from pneumatic to digital controls, masonry flashing and tuck-pointing repairs and electrical switchboard replacement at Geneva High School.

• Concrete sidewalk repairs at Geneva Middle School North.

• Resurfacing the contest gym floor and replacing or repairing damaged roof sections at Geneva Middle School South.

• Concrete sidewalk repairs and repairing or replacing the roof at Harrison Street School.

• Replacing the 33-year-old boiler at Western Avenue School.

• Replacing the 27-year-old boiler and pump and parking lot maintenance at Mill Creek School.

• Concrete sidewalk repairs and replacing carpet and tile flooring at Heartland School.

• Replacing damaged roof sections and resurfacing the gym floor at Fabyan Elementary.

• Upgrading the fire alarm system, replacing the fan coil and condensing units, repairing or replacing the roof and resurfacing the parking lot at Coultrap Educational Services Center.

• Replacing the wall panel, resurfacing and drainage improvements for the parking lot and expanding the parking lot at the Keslinger Bus Garage.

Capital improvement spending that Ney recommended for the following school years:

• $7.5 million in 2024-25

• $10.4 million in 2025-26

• $6.5 million in 2026-27

• $2.2 million in 2027-28

• $1.4 million in 2028-29

• $6.9 million in 2029-30

Ney said the total was almost $48 million, but future considerations as money allows would add an additional $8.4 million to reach the grand total of $56,155,270.

One thing Ney said he did not add yet was an additional $3 million to $4 million for some of the resurfacing that is going to be needed next year. Ney said he would have a payment assessment on this ready in about two weeks.

Superintendent Kent Mutchler thanked Ney and his staff for their work on the capital improvement plan.

“The goal of this plan – as you know because we’ve brought this to you in the past – is to try to equalize out the spending each year, and we’re able to do that carryover, if things don’t happen the way we want them to go, either for lack of bidders or supply chain issues that we have,” Mutchler said. “Scott is really good at finding alternatives. He’s presented this to the Facilities Task Force this afternoon and then tonight at the Finance Committee. One of the things of note – it came up about roofing and the roofing process that we have is budgeted at for a roof replacement. However, we have some innovative roofing that is a poured roof that has a 20- to 25-year warranty with it that we’ve been able to tap into. And that’s a great product and it saves us a bundle of money.”

The other part that the seven-year plan fits into is “a dime spent on maintenance will prevent a dollar spent on replacement later down the road,” Mutchler said.

The full seven-year 59-page capital improvement plan is available online.