Bourne Schools Approve Buildings Upgrade Plan To Be Presented At Town Meeting
The Bourne School Committee has given its approval to move forward with the town’s plan to address much-needed repairs and energy-efficient upgrades to both school and municipal buildings through a performance contracting agreement with Trane Technologies. Various upgrades and repairs to all four school buildings are included in phase one of the town’s plan, which will be presented at Special Town Meeting in October.
Trane representative Morgan Perras, who is the account executive for the project, reviewed with the school board the current scope of work for the school buildings during its meeting on September 7. She said the Town of Bourne has accumulated a significant list of capital needs due to deferred maintenance and fallen into a cycle that Trane calls “sucking the spiral.”
“Each year, you have this amount of needs with this amount of funds,” Ms. Perras said. “You do your best every single year to do what you can with that money but you can never quite pull yourself out of that spiral. So that’s what the goal of a project like this is: to pull you out of that spiral, allow you to comprehensively address these building infrastructure and system upgrades in one project.”
The town selected Trane as its energy services company in January 2022, and the two entities have been working together on an audit agreement and scope of improvements since then. Bournedale Elementary and Bourne Intermediate, Middle and High schools are all included in phase one of the plan.
Some of the items included in phase one are more structural, while others focus more on energy efficiency. Priority items pertaining to the schools in phase one include building envelope repairs at all four buildings, replacement of a section of the high school roof identified as in need of immediate repair, insulation work, kitchen refrigeration controls, transformer replacement, weather stripping, new HVAC units and full building automation systems.
The new HVAC units that would be installed in every high school classroom, Ms. Perras said, would be outfitted with factory Trane controls that have demand control ventilation, meaning the units measure the levels of CO2 in the room and bring in only as much fresh air as is needed.
Using a financial pro forma model to exhibit the cost of such a project, Ms. Perras told the board that over an assumed 15-year contract period, the project would be 58 percent paid off using guaranteed energy savings, utility rebates and capital investments.
“We’re saving the world,” Ms. Perras said. “We’re reducing our utility consumption, we’re reducing our emissions and we’re making our schools more green.”
Board member Maureen Fuller expressed dismay at the choice to forego the replacement of the BMS roof in phase one, which she thought was a priority. District business services manager Jordan Geist said the reason for that choice is mainly timing in relation to the solar panels that were installed on the BMS roof in 2010. Repairs were also done to the roof in 2020, some of which worked, Mr. Geist said, and some of which did not.
Town Administrator Marlene McCollem told the board that she is actively working with town counsel and the solar company to explore options available for the panels on the BMS roof, which will need to be removed before repairs can get underway. Options mentioned were abandoning the array, leaving the contract early or relocating them.
“There will be a financial impact, no question,” Ms. McCollem said. “We’re just trying to find that breaking point where it makes sense to take on that cost as well in order to get at the roof underneath them.”
Superintendent Kerri Anne Quinlan-Zhou said that there are so many things about the BMS roof that could have delayed phase one of the project as a whole, so she thought it best to include BMS in phase two. Ms. Perras assured the board that the town would, at any time during the agreement, have the ability to add, change or modify its scope, however it sees fit.
“Don’t feel like this first phase is it,” she said, “because it’s not.”
Ms. McCollem also explained that the town is looking to pursue a tax-exempt lease payment (TELP), which would give it some small advantages when it comes to lower interest rates and avoiding a bond issuance.
“The TELP does not actually need Town Meeting approval,” Ms. McCollem said. “What needs Town Meeting approval is the 20-year contract. [Neither] I nor the board of selectmen can bind the town for that amount of time per the charter.”
Once the lease term is authorized at Town Meeting, Ms. McCollem said, there will need to be an annual appropriation of funds to cover the TELP. Knowing the town’s overall wish list for capital projects that are of highest priority, she said, will allow town officials to fit projects into the budget as they are comfortable doing so for sustainability.
“We take full responsibility for the work that’s done under our name,” Ms. Perras assured the board. “Our responsibility, our legacy is all behind this. It’s a partnership. We have just as much interest as you guys do.”
Dr. Zhou concluded the board’s discussion by pointing out what she believes are two major benefits to the project: seamless, continuous repairs without having to continually go out to bid, as well as the educational component of allowing students, specifically in the environmental fields, to use and learn from the Trane dashboards that will monitor all four school buildings.
“There’s an education piece here, too,” she said. “It’s pretty cool.”
The motion to support the project as presented passed with eight affirmative votes.