Director of Maintenance, Buildings and Grounds William Brackett took board members on a tour of work completed recently at Harry S Truman Elementary School before the Oct. 5 operations meeting.

Following the tour, Brackett reviewed work completed over the summer to the district buildings.

The board borrowed approximately $6 million to complete the most pressing work in the district. That work included replacement of the roof at Harry S Truman Elementary School, the replacement of exterior doors and framing at HST and Salisbury Middle School, replacement of interior door hardware and keying at SMS, Western Salisbury Elementary School, HST and the administration building, replacement of the quarry tile floors at WSE, renovation of student toilet rooms at SMS and HST, replacement of intercom systems at SMS and WSE, replacement of student lockers at SMS, a new generator at the administration building and recommissioning of the HVAC system at Salisbury High School.

Still to be completed is repaving sections of the parking lot at WSE.

Other projects completed this year included replacement of the stadium lights and lenses at SHS for $10,000, replacement of 20 cafeteria tables at SMS for $30,000, siding replacement as well as the roof at HST for $1,851,100, replacement of 25 cafeteria tables at HST for $35,000, replacement of the receptionist desk at the administration building for $25,000 and replacement of board room microphones for $12,200.

In the facilities department, four upright random orbital tile floor scrubbers were purchased for $6,000, two random orbital floor scrubbers/strippers were purchased for $12,000, a Jacobson wide area mower was purchased for $65,000 and two Toro Workman field grooming units were purchased for $42,000.

The facilities department has also replaced four utility trucks between 2007 and 2015 at a cost of $150,000.

In addition, new furniture is being discussed at SMS for teachers when it was discovered teachers were unable to lock their desk drawers.

District-wide projects from 2007 to present total $28,132,244 and Brackett said there is more work to be done.

Brackett said he needs to replace the HVAC with chiller at HST, replace sidewalks and curbing at WSE, HST and the administration building, replace two kitchen grease traps at SMS, renovate restrooms at WSE, rebuild retaining walls at classroom pods at HST and investigate water infiltration at HST. Additional work is estimated to be $5,679,060.

The board asked Brackett what other maintenance projects he would be coming to the board with in the future. Three items on his radar are the high school garage rooftop, the SHS gym area and the track replacement at the high school in about five years.

The board asked Business Administrator Robert Bruchak for a full rundown on bonds and refinancing before a decision could be made on prioritizing the additional work.

In other business, Bruchak provided a draft time frame for budget development for 2016-2017.

On Oct. 16, budgets from buildings and departments and staffing requests and recommendations are due back to the business office.

Updates will be provided to board members at the Nov. 2 and Dec. 2 operations committee meetings.

A budget workshop will be held Dec. 14.

Dec. 23 is the deadline to make the 2016-2017 proposed preliminary budget available for public inspection.

The preliminary budget presentation will be given at the Jan. 4, 2016 operations committee meeting.

The preliminary budget is expected to be adopted at the Jan. 13, 2016 board meeting.

The proposed final budget will be presented at the May 2, 2016 operations committee meeting with an anticipated adoption at the May 18, 2016 board meeting.

The final budget is expected to be adopted June 15, 2016. The deadline to adopt a 2016-2017 final budget is June 30, 2016, according to the Pennsylvania Department of Education.

In other business, the committee discussed the bus garage cleanup from an initial spill in the underground storage tanks in 1998 and a subsequent spill by Atlantic Coast Energy in 2014.

Testing has been completed and results should be in by the end of the month. The district solicitor is sending a letter to Atlantic Coast Energy to discuss further responsibility.

The next operations meeting is scheduled for 7 p.m. Nov. 2.