For the second meeting in a row, the Board of Education postponed a decision on its five-year Capital Improvement Plan (CIP) on Tuesday, September 1.

A decision is expected during the board’s next scheduled meeting, September 15.

The motion to pass the proposed CIP with additional funds in its fourth year for a boiler at Hawley Elementary School, “for redundancy and to take care of the 1921 building,” as the district’s Facilities Director Gino Faiella explained, was tabled during the meeting. The board directed Mr Faiella to determine the costs for ventilating work that was previously going to be completed with the boiler installation before the September 15 meeting.

School board Chair Keith Alexander said the amount estimated for the boiler is $1,528,230.

The boiler project, Mr Faiella said, would add a third boiler to the facility’s existing boiler system and piping to the 1921 section of the building.

Air conditioning is still part of the larger Hawley project plan, according to Mr Faiella, but parts of the project have been rearranged from the original “phasing.” Mr Faiella said the “crucial part” is the boiler.

“Somehow [the boiler] got pushed to the end,” said Mr Faiella, “and that’s why I think we need to look at all the phases… and go over that one more time and make sure we have all of our priorities.”

During the board’s last meeting, on August 18, the board postponed a decision on the CIP and discussed looking at the proposed Hawley project components further. As explained by school board CIP/Finance/Facilities Committee member Kathy Hamilton at that meeting, changes to the board’s proposed CIP for 2016 through 2021 include a Middle Gate Elementary School boiler and lighting upgrade, a revision to the Newtown High School roof project, and a new project to replace the turf field at NHS to meet the recommended ten-year replacement. The Middle Gate boiler project was moved up from the previous year’s CIP to “take advantage of a program that is being offered by [Eversource],” she said at the meeting.

According to Mr Faiella at the September 1 meeting, Eversource offered to install a gas line for the Sandy Hook Elementary School building project with the town digging the trench for the line. The offer was also extended to Middle Gate, which was reported as potentially saving roughly $400,000 to $600,000, according to Public Works Director Fred Hurley during the August 18 meeting.

In the school board-approved 2014-15 CIP, the Hawley HVAC project was listed in the fifth year of the plan, 2019-20, but, according to CIP/Finance/Facilities Committee Chair David Freedman, who spoke earlier in the evening to a group of Hawley community members, the project was removed later in the process by the Board of Finance. This year’s proposed CIP lists a Middle Gate roof replacement project in the fourth year, 2019-20, and the NHS turf replacement project in the fifth year, 2020-21. The tabled motion during the September 1 meeting would have added the Hawley boiler installation to the fourth year along with the Middle Gate roof replacement project.

Mr Alexander said the school board’s CIP should be submitted to the Board of Finance by the end of September, which, he said, means it should be voted on during the board’s upcoming September 15 meeting.

By the end of the discussion, Mr Alexander said the board was directing Mr Faiella to better determine the cost of the Hawley project components and to assess which parts should be completed together.

Earlier in the evening, Mr Freedman, school board member Michelle Ku, and Superintendent of Schools Joseph V. Erardi, Jr, met with Hawley school parents and community members to address concerns and questions.

Dr Erardi said he felt a sensitivity and mindset among the parents and community members that Hawley is set to close.

“It’s not,” said Dr Erardi. “There is a moratorium on the school closing. There is no conversation around that.”

Selectman Jim Gaston was present for the meeting. Along with sharing other information, Mr Gaston said the Hawley project has been discussed and planned since 2002, when he said a facilities study was completed. Mr Gaston said he was on the Board of Finance at the time and estimated the project was roughly a $5 million project to begin with, estimated to increase in cost for each year it was postponed. Mr Gaston said he estimates the town has lost roughly $8 million by postponing and having the project “bumped” from year to year.

When speaking about the CIP, Dr Erardi said there are needs in each of the district’s buildings. He pointed out needs at Newtown High School and Newtown Middle School, before discussing room temperatures in the top floor classrooms in the 1921 section of Hawley Elementary School, which reportedly hit between 82 degrees and 86 degrees in one classroom on Tuesday.

“My point is there are needs everywhere,” said Dr Erardi. “And that there is escalation everywhere. So how do you move forward? How do you do it in partnership? And how do you do it respectfully?”