Study: Jersey Shore Area School District needs over $50M to update buildings to codes, infrastructure standards

JERSEY SHORE -- Results of a recent building conditions survey of the six buildings in the Jersey Shore Area School District revealed that the district would need to come up with over $50.5 million to bring those buildings up to today's codes and infrastructure standards.

"The title of it is a building condition survey and that's exactly what it is," said school board member Mary Thomas who chaired the meeting.

"They took a survey of all of our buildings and they put together information for us on things that needed to be worked on. Not necessarily immediately, but things that as we start to improve our buildings and make our buildings last for longevity, these are the things we're going to need to get into," she stated.

Jersey Shore Area High School was at the top of the list in terms of costs to make those improvements, at $15,130,628. The oldest building in the district, the middle school, came in as the second costliest at $12,736,387. Both buildings are the largest in the district.

Other buildings and costs of improvements are: Administration, $2,897,402; Avis Elementary, $8,680,887; Salladasburg Elementary, $6,447,099; and Jersey Shore Elementary, $4,626,818.

Included in the figures are certain items that fall below the bid threshold and would be handled by the district's maintenance department, according to Dr. Brian Ulmer, Superintendent.

Prior to discussion on the findings during a virtual meeting Wednesday, Ulmer asked the committee what goals they had in relation to the survey.

“Is our goal that the committee will recommend that we approach this from getting buildings up to code? Is it that we want to make sure that we extend the life of the buildings as far as we possibly can? This is where I wanted to drive this committee to make that recommendation to the board in terms of goals," he said.

"How will you approach this condition survey and what do you want to take away from it and take back to the board and say this is what we want to get out of this work," he added.

Committee member David Becker noted that he would like to see figures relating to cost per square foot and the cost per student at the buildings.

"Then we have to make a determination based on our overall student population which has been declining for the last 20 years. Whether those costs are justified for the students that we're serving," Becker said.

"We saw that the last time this was done the architect gave us estimates of how to utilize the buildings more. At that time they were saying that the buildings, especially Avis and Salladasburg, were at 50 percent capacity," he added.

Becker questioned whether it makes sense to invest millions of dollars in buildings that are only half-full.

"Try to figure out how to get the most bang for our buck in terms of efficiency with these things," he asserted.

Although Thomas said that she understood his concern and agreed with it, she argued that this study did not address any of that.

"Is that one of the things we need to do, go beyond this study and look at those types of things," she asked.

Another committee member Wayne Kinley, agreed with Becker that capacity is an issue.

"Before we can prioritize, I think we have to consider that as part of making a decision," Kinley said.

Citing the cost of renovating the two elementary schools Becker mentioned, Kinley questioned, "What is the long term outlook."

"What is the best way to zero in on where we want to spend our dollars," he added.

When the committee began discussing options for financing some of the projects, Kinley stated, "I'm not going to raise taxes to pay for capital projects."

The committee ultimately decided that more information on funding and capacity was needed in order to move forward.