Andrew Martins, Managing Editor
An unofficial estimate to have air conditioning work completed at Auten Road Intermediate School by the end of the year has been pushed back even further into the 2017-18 school year, as the Hillsborough Township Board of Education looks to drive bid costs down.
During the Aug. 21 school board meeting, officials announced that they would be re-bidding the project with a focus on doing the work when HVAC companies are not typically installing air conditioning units on a regular basis.
“We’re going to try to turn something that was a disappointment into something good. We will bid again…and try to maybe get the two schools done and do it at a time that we think the bids will be lower,” School Board President Gregory Gillette said.
News of the delay came weeks after officials reported that bids for the installation of window air conditioning units at the intermediate school came in roughly 50 percent above expectations.
Though the bids were unexpectedly high, Superintendent Dr. Jorden Schiff said the district has enough in its capital reserve that “if the board chooses to fund the project, we can assign additional funds.”
Board member Thomas Kinst, who also serves on the board’s operations committee, said a significant reason behind the higher than expected bid cost was “due to the timing of trying to get that work done during the summer,” since demand would be higher during the warmer months.
As a result of the committee’s determination, the board has opted to not only re-bid the project for a later time, but also to include Hillsborough Middle School in the project.
Kinst said they could configure the bids separately, as well as together, in a move to see which action would result in lower costs.
The delay with getting air conditioning work started come almost a year after unseasonably warm temperatures resulted in uncomfortably warm classrooms for students and teachers during the first week of classes last September.
Without consistent air conditioning throughout the district’s nine schools, teachers and staff were forced to use different methods to keep students cool, including cycling classrooms through existing air conditioned areas, such as school libraries or auditoriums.
The issue came up again near the end of the school year when outside temperatures rose in June. At that time, the district implemented a rotating schedule for teachers to sign up for so their classrooms could go into the aforementioned air conditioned areas.
For parents like school board member Dana Boguszewski, whose son attended ARIS last September, the issue of air conditioning at the school is important.
“I don’t want this to fall off to the wayside,” Boguszewski said. “I want this to be at a high priority.”
