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BOCES proposes $18.5M project

BOCES District Superintendent Steve Shafer, left, speaks to the Lake Placid Central School District Board of Education about the proposed Franklin-Essex-Hamilton BOCES capital project at a Jan. 17 meeting. (Enterprise photo — Antonio Olivero)

LAKE PLACID – The 10 schools that make up Franklin-Essex-Hamilton BOCES are considering joining together to finance a proposed $18.5 million capital project with a vote likely in September.

Watertown-based BCA Architects & Engineers has developed a plan for the project and is currently touring each of the 10 districts presenting their plan at school board meetings, including a stop at the Lake Placid Central School District meeting on Jan. 17.

BCA is proposing $6.88 million in improvements for the North Franklin Educational Center in Malone and $4.93 million in improvements at Adirondack Educational Center in Saranac Lake. BCA is also budgeting $2.62 million in incidental costs, $2.16 million in a 15 percent contingency buffer and $1.92 million in a 3 percent annual escalation of construction costs.

Speaking at the Lake Placid board meeting last week, BOCES District Superintendent Steve Shafer said voters in each of the 10 districts — Lake Placid, Saranac Lake, Tupper Lake, Brushton-Moira, Chateaugay, Malone, Raquette Lake, Long Lake, Salmon River and St. Regis Falls — would combine for approval or disproval of the plan.

Of the $18.5 million total estimated cost, BCA is estimating Lake Placid’s share would be $1.51 million, Saranac Lake’s $2.64 million and Tupper Lake’s $1.71 million — each of those numbers not including estimated BOCES Resident Weighted Average Daily Attendance (RWADA) aid.

Rodney Asse, Director of Management and Finance for Franklin-Essex-Hamilton BOCES, speaks to the Lake Placid school board on Jan. 17, Mike Harris of BCA Architects & Engineers to his right. (Enterprise photo — Antonio Olivero)

Neither Lake Placid or Saranac Lake is projected to received RWADA aid, while BCA estimates Tupper Lake would receive $752,209 over two years, dropping their share of the district-wide project to $959,566.

At the Jan. 17 meeting, Shafer said the districts have two options for financing their shares of the project: either to together enter into a inter-municipal agreement for the project, or to be billed annually as individual districts for shares of the projects costs.

Shafer said the advantage of the inter-municipal agreement is that it would allow districts three different options to pay their share: an all-cash option split into two payments, bond anticipation notes that could be used for two years, and multi-year financing.

Shafer said districts could individually finance by combining the three options after Lake Placid Business Manager Leonard Sauers asked if the district could combine paying a portion in cash and multi-year financing.

The estimated percentage on the 2015-16 tax levy for Lake Placid is 1.04 percent, 1.17 percent for Saranac Lake and 1.02 percent for Tupper Lake.

The estimated annual average cost to taxpayers on a $150,000 home in Lake Placid is $9.31, $16.76 in Saranac Lake and $20.47 in Tupper Lake.

BCA proposes the project be completed in two phases in 2018 and 2019.

Adirondack Educational Center in Saranac Lake

Proposed space planning issues at AEC include consolidating alternative education classrooms, creating a traditional style classroom for culinary arts (a program that currently doesn’t have a classroom space), creating a cafe and deli space within the existing kitchen for expanded culinary arts program offerings, carving out a new classroom space for the building trades program out of the existing shop space, renovating the auto tech shop to expand into electric and hybrid car repair, building a greenhouse gas addition for expanded offerings in the natural resource program, providing a handicap bathroom in the health occupation classroom and renovating the main office and counselors suite to allow better and more private one-on-one counseling with students.

Proposed health safety and security improvements at AEC include replacing non-rated corridor doors, providing additional fire and smoke alarm devices to comply with current standards, renovating bathrooms for compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act and creating a more enclosed, secure entrance.

Proposed additional scope items at AEC include replacing an underground fuel oil tank, reconstructing existing pavement, replacing a sidewalk, masonry rehab, partially replacing an exterior door and window, replacing the public address system, CUV replacements, providing public water access and upgrading Wi-Fi throughout the building.

North Franklin Educational Center in Malone

Proposed space planning issues at North Franklin Educational Center include renovating the auto tech shop to expand the program into electric and hybrid car repair and providing additional space for a wash bay and engine repair, relocating cosmetology to a larger space to allow for expanded curriculum such as spa care, relocating early childhood education to a larger space, renovating the main office and counselors suite, providing a greenhouse for the science department, consolidating the alternative education classrooms, building new space for the resource room for students with IEPs, renovating and expanding the district office, relocating the electrical trades program to a larger space, creating a classroom for the culinary arts program and creating a classroom for the building trade and heavy equipment program by carving out existing shop space.

Proposed health safety and security improvements at North Franklin Educational Center include additional fire and smoke devices to meet current standards, replacing corridor doors with required fire rated doors, creating an enclosed, secure entrance, providing ramps at several entrances and renovating several bathrooms to increase handicap accesibility.

Additional scope items include additional parking and road access, reconstruction of existing pavement, masonry rehab, partial exterior door replacement, interior fire door replacement, interior lighting replacement, clock and PA system replacements and upgrading Wi-Fi throughout the building.

Proposed energy efficiency improvements to both Adirondack Educational Center and North Franklin Educational Center include replacing the buildings’ remaining pneumatic controls with digital controls, replacing original air handling units and the associated ductwork. At AEC, BCA is also proposing replacing overhead doors with new energy efficient doors.

Water line issue

There is one outstanding variable in the proposed project, as the cost to run a water line from the village of Saranac Lake’s water supply to AEC is undetermined. It’s an outlying question Lake Placid board member Pat Stanton described as “kind of major.”

Shafer said BCA has factored in what it expects to be the maximum cost of the water line work into the contingency cost for the project.

“The best case scenario is we’d go right out of AEC with a water line, go right into a right-of-way along state Route 3 several hundred feet to get back to the village water supply there,” he said.

“It doesn’t absolutely have to be decided before the vote,” he added, “as long as we make sure we are going to stay within our cost estimates either way. In a perfect world, I’d love to have it all nailed down by June, but there is quite a bit to it.”

“Early indications are that we are probably going to be able to use this right-of-way,” he continued. “But if we cannot, we’d have to then look into getting easements across other parcels of property and purchasing property.”

Lake Placid school board member Jeffrey Brownell then asked in the event of a massive cost overrun after voter approval, would voters be stuck with footing a bigger bill? Shafer replied that the project couldn’t cost more than what voters approved. He added that BCA initially proposed a $25 million project to districts, including solar panels, but the districts turned it down.

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