MONROE — The School District of Monroe Board of Education approved a measure to reduce its milk offerings to students each day from three to two at the regular board meeting July 27.
“We don’t take this lightly,” Superintendent Joe Monroe said.
Students previously had three chances a day to get milk at school — breakfast, morning nutritional snack break, and lunch. The move by the board discards the snack break option, which came with further paperwork and staff time, principals testified. Snack will still be offered.
“The reason ... is kind of twofold. One is that there is a financial cost to the district, and as we all know, we’re working through some challenges as a school district. We’re taking a hard look at all of our finances,” Supt. Monroe said. “I think probably equally important, if not more important in the eyes of our principals and staff is that there’s a cost when it comes to staff time — whether it be teachers, secretaries, custodial — it is really significant.”
As part of the reduction plan was to eliminate two and a half elementary custodians. The time needed by custodial staff to accommodate the snack break distribution was significant.
Supt. Monroe also informed the board that the chiller (air conditioning) at Monroe Middle School is down. It went out once last school year, but adding coolant and replacing some fans extended its life.
“This time we lost two of our compressors that drive it. The cost of replacing those would be $110,000. The third compressor is showing damage as well. Whether we could salvage that or not, we don’t know,” Supt. Monroe said.
A lifespan for that type of chiller is usually 15-20 years, and the one at MMS has lasted 26 years.
Once it gets properly looked at, Supt. Monroe said a quick fix “could easily become 180 to 200,000. (And) they have no way of assuring us whether that’s going to last for two months or five years.”
A temporary rental chiller to remedy the problem would cost $25,000 per month. A new chiller altogether would cost between $360,000-$385,000. Adding installation costs, the estimate grows to about $400,000.
District business manager Ron Olson said about $180,000 will come out of the long-term maintenance budget. The district has a maintenance agreement with NAMI, the installer, which gave the cost estimates.
The board also approved a continued agreement with Monroe Parks and Recreation for athletic field use and maintenance.
“We’ve had a reciprocal agreement with Park and Rec and the YMCA for a number of years,” Olson said. It allows the department to utilize school spaces for some of their programming. “Those things will continue.”
In a MHS building project update, the board was told the district now holds occupancy of all of the buildings on the new campus. The kitchen also passed its health inspection.
CG Schmidt senior project manager Tony Buss reminded the board that substantial completion does not equal final completion.
“There’s a lot of loose ends that are still being worked on,” Buss said. “We’re going to be here later on this year and next summer tweaking things still. It’s just the way buildings go.”
— Adam Krebs