From the Mount Pleasant School Board Meeting

The Mount Pleasant School met in regular session Monday night.  A top item on the agenda was a decision on the HVAC upgrade project. The conceptual estimated budget was $1,684,930 for the entire project that involved HVAC upgrades for the High School, gym, locker rooms and vocational areas as well as the Middle School gym. However, this estimate was significantly lower than the Design and Development estimated budget of $3, 541,757. Most of the difference had to do with the discovery that the line sets are too long to use regular air conditioners at the High School. This means the chilled water option would have to be used increases the cost by about $1, 000,000. The labor and equipment estimated costs were $550,000 more than the engineer thought. Because the School Site committee felt it was important not to use more than money than the allotted federal Covid funding the recommendation was made to prioritize what parts of the project were most important to fund….move forward with the High School work and leave out the Middle School plans at an estimated cost of $2,184,000 or cool the Middle School gym only at a cost of $1,670,000. The recommendation to the full board was the High School option. However, even tho other members of the board agreed with the logic for option 1, there was still concern about having enough government funds to continue to financially support learning loss recovery efforts for two more years at about one million dollars per year.  It was decided the necessary money could be carved out of the HVAC funds that in turn could be supplemented with dollars from the penny sales tax fund and/or the physical plant and equipment levy.