Schools plan to spend $2.5M in fire code upgrades

Cranston schools’ plant operations director Ed Collins says that “it’s replacement time” and there’s “no more fixes” when it comes to the building improvements in schools across the city.

“It’s caught up with us due to a lack of funding or investment in buildings,” Collins said about the wear and tear of the buildings. “Now we’ve got a huge wave of things that need to get done.”

Over the next two years, $5,146,000 will be spent in school upgrades and repairs. In June of 2019, this work will be presented to the Rhode Island Department of Education (RIDE) and, if completed, the city expects to get back $.52 on the dollar from the state. Over the next five years, a total of $15,744,904 in repairs is targeted. Funding would come from a combination of school budget funds, city bonds and state reimbursements.

Collins said he thinks the city and school departments have done a “very good” job of maintaining the buildings, but it’s now time to spend money on replacing certain aspects of the buildings themselves over the coming years.

“This is common throughout Rhode Island,” he said. “We have thousands of people coming through the door, at some point you just can’t keep repairing. We have so many categories, from paving and roofs to boilers, that are all coming out now.”

The Cranston School Committee released a list at the March meeting that detailed the repairs/replacements that will be done in the next five years.

The work that is being done for this 2017-18 year includes minor improvements, such as refrigerator and oven replacements in school cafeterias, totaling $400,500.

The more expensive project is the fire code upgrades, which Collins said were requested by the fire department and have been a concentration of his since he became plant operations director.

For this year, the upgrades are scheduled at Western Hills Middle School and four elementary schools, including Dutemple, Waterman, Stadium, and Chester Barrows. The total cost is $2,510,000.

Another major upcoming project, according to Collins, is a replacement of door hardware at Cranston East, which will be done next year at a cost of $150,000. There is also an HVAC boiler repair being done next year at Stone Hill Elementary for $186,000, which Collins said is a top priority because it “must be fixed.”

The money for those two projects will be coming out of the school department’s budget for next year.

The most expensive project out of any in this plan is the $4,000,000 sprinkler and fire alarm upgrade at Park View Middle School that will be done in the 2019-20 school year. Collins said that the money for that would come from the city, which will also be reimbursed at $.52 on the dollar from RIDE.

The city will also provide the money for the fire alarm and sprinkler upgrades that will be happening at 16 of Cranston’s 22 schools.

At Cranston West, the parking lot will be repaired in 2021 for $730,250 and its fire code will be upgraded in 2022 for $1,200,000. At East, the HVAC will be fixed in 2020 for $1,000,000.

Collins said that the projects scheduled for this year and next year must be done by June of 2019 to get the reimbursements from RIDE. Then, he said, they’ll redo the evaluation process to determine what the cost will be for the rest of the fixes that need to be done.

“The list of things that need to be done is long,” he said. “Ideally we’re ahead of the curve and replacing things before we get to this point, but we’re not even close to that.”

Collins also said that these projects would be done regardless of what comes out of the evaluation being done by Fielding Nair International, the outside company the administration has hired to determine what needs to be done to make Cranston schools more conducive to “21st century learning.”