Board OKs emergency repairs at middle school

The New Prague Area School Board held an emergency meeting Tuesday, Nov. 5, to approve a contract with a vendor to make an emergency repair to the district's heating and cooling system at the middle school.

Superintendent Tim Dittberner said the computer controls for the system crashed last week, with the result being that the district is not able to control the heat in individual rooms in the building. "While this hasn’t posed a problem yet, the heating season is coming up and as it stands, individual room temperature can only be controlled by a manual process which would be very difficult, if not impossible, to do," said Craig Most, director of buildings and grounds. "There are hundreds of temperature sensors in the building. Money is being lost because hot water is running through the building whether it needs to or not." 

Most and Dittberner said they are recommending that Climate Makers do the repairs. A similar project at Falcon Ridge was recently awarded, and Climate Makers was the only company to bid on the project.

Expected cost for the repair is more than $100,000. Dittberner said this project is in the deferred maintenance plan for 2015-16, so the money is in the budget, it will just need to be spent sooner than expected. Because the project costs more than $100,000, the district is required to ask for sealed bids, unless the board votes to declare an emergency. Since the bidding process would take more than a month, the special meeting was held and a resolution passed to facilitate the repairs