Vehicle purchases, parking lot work on district agenda

The Glenwood Community School District Board of Directors unanimously approved more than $275,000 in spending over the next fiscal year for purchases of three new vehicles, including two new school buses, repairs to parking lots and routine maintenance to buildings in the district.

The budget approvals are part of a five-year plan for district improvements the board approved in a 5-0 vote Monday, Feb. 8.
The school plans to purchase two new school buses and a new van as early as this summer. The vehicle purchase estimates are the highest line item on the upcoming fiscal year’s summer work plan at just over $90,000. That money will come out of the district’s Physical Plant and Equipment Levy (PPEL) fund.

Parking lot surface work on district grounds is budgeted at $30,000 with the bulk of work focusing on the rear parking lot and the playground area at West Elementary, said Glenwood Community School District Superintendent Devin Embray.

“We don’t know if we can get both done this summer but they are our priority,” Embray said of the re-surfacing work planned at West.
Crack repair and additional sealing and paint work will also be done on the high school, athletic complex, middle school, Northeast Elementary and West parking lots.

Whether the district continues to repair its asphalt surfaces or goes to the more durable, but more expensive, concrete alternative down the road is yet to be decided.

“It could be asphalt or concrete – it depends on what comes in lower (on costs),” Embray said. ‘We’re guessing, with the price of oil being what it is, it will be mostly asphalt but we don’t know. We have some concrete bidders who will bid us very competitively. If we get a good competitive cost (to asphalt) we’ll go with concrete because it holds up longer.”

Time and finances permitting, Embray added, the district will cut out a bank of land in the hillside behind the Progressive Learning Center at the middle school with the intent of expanding that parking lot.
“We probably wouldn’t be able to put in an asphalt parking lot right away but we’d gravel it with asphalt the following year,” Embray said.
That project is expected to cost $30,000 and would be paid for with the district’s Secure an Advanced Vision for Education (SAVE) dollars it receives through a one-cent sales tax levy.

New carpet and painting projects estimated at $32,400 are also planned at Northeast, West and the high school.

Those projects, much like the surface and parking lot projects, are on rotating schedules, meaning if one school or area gets carpet or paint this year, another would be on the schedule for next year.
“We typically try and stay up on things because if we don’t, it can cost us more in the long run,” he said.