The Salisbury Township School District Board of Directors held an operations and finance committee meeting Aug. 6 to receive an update on the progress of summer projects from the master facilities plan. The topic of conducting a feasibility study for the use of solar energy was broached and an overview of end-of-year and 5-year projections was also presented.

Director of Facilities Bill Brackett, began the meeting with a mention about the master facilities plan which will be presented later in September. Representatives from CHA, formerly D’Huy Engineering, will discuss the plan going forward.

The district is also working with McClure Engineering to conduct a feasibility study to see if the cost of installing solar energy panels will generate enough energy to serve the district, offset the cost of installation and realize future energy savings. The feasibility study comes at no cost to the district.

Brackett went on to provide the board with a detailed presentation outlining the status of all summer projects.

Work completed at the middle school included removal of carpeting and installation of luxury vinyl flooring in classrooms, installation of carpeting in the music room and portions of the main office, painting the cafeteria, refinishing the gym floor and installing a new monitoring system. Still to be completed is the cleaning of curtains on the stage due to the dust generated from construction and blinds will be installed in the cafeteria to replace the curtains.

The Salisbury Elementary School reconfiguration of the library area is ongoing. The library will now include three new spaces including a room for student use, a teacher’s work area and an IT office. The main library and the reading steps will now be completely enclosed by doors that lock providing an extra level of security. New furniture and bookcases in the library will arrive soon and the process of assembling furniture and re-shelving all the library books will begin. The library is expected to be fully functional and ready to receive students by the first week in September.

Additionally, ceiling tiles, grids and lighting in and around the library area have also been installed.

Other areas of the building have also received a refresh including new paint in the cafeteria and the PTO/meeting room, new flooring in classrooms and hallways in the upper pods and the installation of a new monitoring system.

Salisbury High School did not see extensive renovations this summer beyond the installation of a new monitoring system; however, classrooms and hallways will still receive a thorough cleaning and will be ready to welcome students on the first day of school.

As construction wraps up, administration is looking to the future and according to Chief Financial Officer Dawn Nickischer, inquiries are being made to secure grant money to replace flooring in the cafeterias.

Director Joseph Gnall asked for clarification on the work being done to keep the playgrounds and the exterior of Western Salisbury Elementary School looking presentable.

Brackett reported mulch in two of the three playground areas was removed and replaced in order to keep the weeds at bay. The third area received new mulch over the old mulch as there was not enough time to scrape up the existing mulch.

The facilities crews are doing their best to keep on top of it. He acknowledged there are still bushes and shrubs near the building that need to be removed but they needed to get the playground areas looking good for the Aug. 5 National Night Out event.

During the finance portion of the meeting, Nickischer informed the board she had recently been made aware end-of-year projections and 5-year projections could be generated using the CSIU program already in use by the district. She presented both the Forecast5 version and the CSIU side-by-side and concluded there is not much difference beyond the presentation of data and CSIU proved easier to implement. She said she will be asking the board to forgo renewing a contract with Forecast5 for a savings of $18,000 per year.

Finance Chairperson Ian Riccaboni asked several questions related to the deficit he was seeing on the end-of-year and 5-year projections and wondered what the district could do now to plan ahead.

Nickischer noted for end-of-year projections, it is still too early to say whether a deficit will be realized as not all bills have been paid out and numbers can change up to $1 million. Figures are not finalized until after an audit has been completed and final entries have been posted.

As far as the 5-year projection, she intends to encourage the board to earmark funds for the Salisbury High School HVAC project in 2029-2030. In the short term, once the fund balance numbers have been established for this year, work on budgeting and attaining grant money for future projects can begin.

The next meeting of the operations and finance committee will be 7 p.m. Sept. 10. A regular school board meeting will be held 7 p.m. Aug. 13. All meetings will be held in the administration building, 1140 Salisbury Road, Allentown.