FAIRMONT – ICS Consulting and Fairmont Area Schools continued to work on identifying potential priority projects for facilities funding during Tuesday’s school board work session.

Superintendent Andy Traetow said none of what’s included right now is guaranteed, as they’re still in the consideration phase for what, if any projects the board decides to go out and get funding for.

“Your scope of decisions will be from none of it to all of it, and anywhere between those options,” he said. “When we get to a timeline and vet this out, there will be a scope of work that you as a board will have to make a final determination on.”

Currently, “all of it” stands at $48,816,005 in this early preliminary plan. Traetow said they likely would not go for all of that, and plenty of cuts can be made. The largest piece is for HVAC and indoor air quality upgrades, at $17,390,174 across both schools.

Regarding specific funding within that amount and the whole sum in general, Board Member Michael Edman said he needs to see a breakdown of exactly how much specific projects will cost in that $17 million amount.

“We’re going to have to make decisions that are complex,” he said. “You might spend $1.2 million for the locker room HVAC. Okay, how often we use the locker room would be the next question, right? Not very often. How often do we use science and math classrooms? All day, every day, right? They’re not the same.”

ICS Development Executive Pat Overom said they will have that breakdown for each section as the process continues.

Edman said he would like to consider the last five years of safety inspection records when deciding changes.

“We’ve had 10 years of flying colors passing inspections,” he said. “[The systems are] old, but if those reports suggest a lower priority, since we have that data we should incorporate it.”

Around 100,000 square feet of the elementary school is from 1954. Because of this, Overom said for better or for worse some of its system is nearly 70 years old. The preliminary estimate marks the HVAC systems, interior and elevator from that time as areas to potentially include for funding.

Moving forward, the plan is to continue developing scenarios and financial solutions. In March, ICS will get feedback from stakeholders and have another school board work session March 25.

Following this, they will use the feedback to refine the facilities plan and bring a plan to the board for approval in May or June.

Because it was a work session, no votes were had.

In other news.

— Traetow handed out the results of the Desired Daily Experience surveys they distributed to students, parents and staff mid-year. He said they are working on taking the data and aligning it with their baseline measurements, but he wanted the board to have the raw data right now. He said once everything is finalized, the results will be shared publicly.

— The yearly agreement opening consideration to potential programs and budget reductions was passed by the board. Traetow said it is not a confirmation that programs, budgets, or jobs will be cut. He said changes have been made due to the end of ESSER funds and flux of state-supported measures. Board Member Dan Brookens said the agreement is thankfully mainly a formality as in his time on the board they have only had to make a major cut once, and it was at the beginning of his first term.