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Project Cannot Proceed, School Closures Possible If Systems Fail
The Sudbury Energy and Sustainability Committee was in a pickle on Tuesday, August 6. On one hand, they could fund the control system for HVAC retrofits at the Curtis Middle School and Haynes Elementary School. On the other, they could hold to their values and their understanding of their mission as a committee, and vote “no.” They opted for the latter, voting against (3 in favor, 5 opposed) funding the request from Combined Facilities Director Sandra Duran.
The project bid came in well above available funds that were appropriated it prior Town Meetings. Even after Sudbury Public Schools was able to scrap together over a quarter million dollars from their budget to close the gap, the Town still needed over $200,000 more to proceed with the project. For more details, Sudbury Weekly has full coverage of the last meeting here.
The running summary is that the project is a retrofit of existing HVAC systems, rather than a replacement with more modern systems that would meet regulatory requirements that kick in this coming January. The former would cost about $1.2M, the latter could be as much as four times the price according to Duran.
In prior discussions, Duran made it clear that the systems were at the end of their useful life, and could break down at any time. If that were to happen, she felt it could result in a school closure. After the motion to fund the project failed on Tuesday, Duran added:
I know this has been a tough one. I’m disappointed, and I’m not sure what we’ll do, but I guess we’ll just hope that they will survive until we can come up with the money to replace them in time. But I appreciate all your time.
That vote may have put the schools in a pickle of their own. On Monday the Sudbury Public Schools (SPS) Committee approved budget transfers (Page 5) and closed out FY24. Sudbury Weekly has reached out to SPS to understand what the vote might mean for the district, and we’ll update this story if/when we receive a response.
Even the members of the Energy and Sustainability committee who voted in favor of funding the project made a point to say they didn’t want to be put in this position again. Member Mary Farris said: “I’m going to say yea with a lot of torn principles, and I echo Elsa [Iovanella] that we not do this again.”
Based on comments from Duran during the meeting, it may be wishful thinking to demand that such tough choices don’t come before the committee in the future. Duran emphasized that the backlog of deferred maintenance in Sudbury has created a flurry of urgent needs all at once:
“You know, this is our concern as a Town and as a facility director, that we bring to you the committee and to others, saying that we are in this situation and it’s really unfortunate. I’ve said this to the town manager before, that I’ve been in this position before, where I’ve been the bearer of bad news that, hey guess what, you have 20, 30 year-old equipment, and it’s all going at the same time. And it’s unfortunate to be in this position, and have such limited funds. But that’s where we are.”
The meeting included broader discussion about the town-wide facilities assessment that is underway. Duran is in the process of making a long-term plan to address the facilities needs across the town. She indicated that it’s looking like the Town has 20 years of planning to do in order to tackle the needs that are being uncovered. In combination with gloomy prior reports on the financial forecast for the town from Town Manager Andy Sheehan, and ever-rising construction costs, the pressure may only ratchet up on the Energy and Sustainability Committee to support capital projects that aren’t optimally aligned with their mission or preferred processes.
The committee moved right into one such challenge soon after the vote on the HVAC systems concluded. They learned that the actual cost of the Fairbank Community Center electric vehicle charging stations is $25,000 higher than previously estimated. This was attributed to some technicalities found in the incentives from Eversource rather than cost increases. After some debate, the committee voted 4-1 in favor of increasing the funding from $1,100 to $26,100. Looming on the horizon: the Goodnow Library charging stations are estimated to require another $18,000-$25,000 more according to the discussions during the meeting.