By KARI BLURTON
Hays Post

At Tuesday’s meeting of the Hays USD 489 Board of Education, Patrick Lowry, co-chairman of the facilities needs committee, presented school board members with an update.

Lowry said the committee has pored over details of each district building in terms of what was missing or needs to be replaced. He called the list “long” and “expensive.”

He said the committee, which has been charged with making a recommendation on the district’s building needs in the future, has discovered some “big ticket items that need to be considered,” such as “compensating for lack of appropriate maintenance to buildings over the years.”

The committee was formed after the district floated a proposed plan that would have resulted in a new high school and several other significant building changes. Faced with cost estimates in the $100 million range, the committee has spent more than a year examining the district’s buildings.

Lowry recommended the board consider services offered by the Docking Institute at Fort Hays State University to gauge whether a bond issue to fund the projects would pass.

The committee is planning to meet with HTK Architects on Friday to look at revised cost estimates of a proposed plan, and Lowry said the group is close to giving final recommendations to the school board.

Another agenda item included the motion to approve a bid from Glassman Corp. of Hays for a new chiller at Roosevelt Elementary School. Out of two bids, Glassman had the lower bid at $39,900. Superintendent Dean Katt said the chiller should be installed by February.