The largest single item in the Alamance-Burlington school system’s county budget request for the 2025-26 fiscal year is a total of $19.5 million in annual funding for building maintenance and big-ticket projects such as roof replacements, HVAC renovations, “security vestibules,” and security cameras throughout all ABSS facilities (see related story, this edition).
See story on ABSS’ $78.6 million budget request: https://alamancenews.com/school-board-approves-78-6m-budget-county-budget-request/
See story on exclusive interview with superintendent Dr. Aaron Fleming and chief finance officer Tony Messer on their plans for greater financial transparency within the school system: https://alamancenews.com/abss-plans-to-open-the-books-with-new-financial-dashboard/
In an exclusive interview with The Alamance News on Monday afternoon, ABSS chief finance officer Tony Messer said that the proposed $14.7 million in Capital Improvement (CIP) funding for 2025-26 “is more of a planning tool than anything” so Alamance County government officials can plan and budget for big-ticket facility expenses.
That potential CIP budget has been developed for the next five years, through the 2029-30 fiscal year, based on the county budget request that school board members approved Monday night.
Both the CFO and superintendent Dr. Aaron Fleming and Messer emphasized in the interview Monday afternoon that, for many years, ABSS had no plan in place in place for scheduling and funding big-ticket facilities projects.
Instead, ABSS previously relied on a “very random” process – going to the commissioners on an as-needed basis, and sometimes monthly – when major repairs were needed, the superintendent and CFO said in the interview.
“It was like whack-a-mole,” Messer told the newspaper. In two other school systems where he’d previously served as the CFO (Scotland and Chatham counties), capital funding budgets were developed four to eight years to avoid sticker shock when expensive projects arose, he added.
The school system’s proposed CIP budget request reflects, in part, the findings from an assessment of roofing and HVAC systems of all ABSS facilities and county-owned buildings that Alamance County government officials had commissioned in the fall of 2023, following the mold outbreak in 33 school facilities that cost more than $27 million to remediate and delayed the start of the 2023-24 school year by two weeks.
“We do need renovated facilities for our students to learn in,” Fleming said at the beginning of the public hearing Monday. “It is a big request,” he acknowledged, referring in particular to the five-year capital improvement plan for ABSS.
Other types of capital projects listed within the $14.7 million proposed CIP budget for 2025-26 were developed by the school system’s operations department, which handles routine maintenance and repairs for more than 3.4 million square feet of ABSS facilities, according to chief operations officer Greg Hook.
“We sorely need to do lots of upkeep and [repairs and renovations] in each of our facilities,” Hook said during the public hearing Monday night.
At the same time, Hook and Fleming indicated during Monday night’s discussion that, though the CIP ultimately might not be funded by Alamance County’s commissioners, they followed the direction they had been given by county government officials to develop the long-range plan and include it in their budget.
The COO said he’d worked to “level the impact” of the larger repairs and renovations over the next five fiscal years.
The total cost to fund the CIP over the next five years would be $59.8 million (from 2025-26 to 2029-30), or an average of approximately $11.9 million per year, based on the long-range capital improvement plan that school board members unanimously approved as part of the county budget request Monday night.
“ABSS has never presented a formal capital improvement plan to the county,” Hook elaborated. “They had something they were calling the ‘Top 10’ and the next 10. It’s very specific to what we think we need to prioritize.”
The dollar figures [for the HVAC and roofing replacements] come directly from the study that was commissioned and paid for by the county and presented on February 5, 2024, said Hook.
REI Engineers, the Raleigh-based firm that conducted the roofing study for the county, “put a replacement year on every roof on every campus so we can do long-range planning in collaboration with the county,” Hook explained.
Systems Contractors of Greensboro used the same process to develop costs and schedule replacements over that five-year period for every piece of HVAC equipment, as well as chillers and boilers, which Hook described as the “workhouses of heating and cooling within the school.” Replacements of other HVAC equipment such as air handling units and controls are also reflected in the long-range CIP budget, the COO said.
One of Hook’s more noteworthy revelations came later Monday evening, when he told the board that ABSS currently has a 30-week “lead time” (i.e., the delay between when an order is placed and the date on which it’s delivered) for a new chiller, the type of cooling system used in ABSS schools and most commercial buildings.
“You’re talking about things that are a need, not a want, correct?” school board member Avery Wagoner asked Hook.
“Yes,” the COO responded, adding that he would work with Alamance County government officials to shuffle projects in the event that an emergency repair was needed sooner than planned.
Referring to the CIP, school board chairman Sandy Ellington-Graves said, “A lot of feedback I’ve gotten from the community is, that’s a big number. Correct me if I’m wrong, [but in the past] we’d just go to the commissioners whenever we needed [more county capital funding than was budgeted for the fiscal year]. This is more of a bite-size plan to make it manageable.”
Hook elaborated, “I’ve been in this position two years, and the way I’ve had to request funds is very haphazard. I was even counseled by a former commissioner [to] bring our capital needs so they can budget. It helps us but also helps the county commissioners to plan. It’s a big step forward. This is what all other counties do – they don’t work from a Top 10 and a next 10…The way I’ve worked, and the way my predecessor worked, is when you need something, just go [before the commissioners].”
Some of the other CIP projects that would be completed in 2025-26 include:
- HVAC renovation, chiller replacements, and related equipment at Graham High ($4.5 million) and Sylvan and Haw River elementary schools (estimated $320,000 each);
- Security camera replacements at Southern, Western and Williams high schools, estimated at between $300,000 and $400,000 each.
The ABSS budget book, which details all of the line items in its county budget request for 2025-26 and its CIP budget, can be viewed in its entirety at: https://www.abss.k12.nc.us/o/abss/page/budget-dashboard
Read the newspaper’s editorial page views on the school board’s budget request and specifically the proposed new spending for classified employees: https://alamancenews.com/spending-cheerleaders/
