By KAYLA J. MARSH
Staff Writer
ABERDEEN – A special election in early March resulted in voters from the Matawan-Aberdeen Regional School District pass two referendum questions that approved heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) projects for classrooms, instructional spaces, public spaces and offices throughout the district.
As the school year comes to an end, school officials said that they are ready to begin work on several of the referendum projects and laid out plans regarding where the work will begin and when it will begin.
“Our first priority in the buildings will be handling all of the instructional spaces first,” Superintendent Joseph Majka said at a June 13 Board of Education meeting.
“We want to minimize the impact on schools … [and] want to put the least important projects at the end in case the district runs into budget issues [or] design changes…”
The referendum questions asked voters to approve the sale of bonds to finance the costs of the proposed improvements over approximately 25 years at 3.8 percent.
With both bond proposals approved, the total cost of the HVAC upgrades and improvements equals $19,856,000.
The New Jersey Department of Education has approved the district for Debt Service Aid, which will cover 34 percent of the repayments over the life of the bond, according to school officials.
The referendum funding covers new unit ventilators/air handlers, exhaust, controls and electrical upgrades that will bring the district up to current state codes.
It will also add air conditioning to the instructional spaces that do not currently have it and replace ones that do.
“We wanted to make the projects manageable by working on only four schools per summer …” Majka said.
According to the superintendent, this summer work will be done at two of the district elementary schools, as well as the middle and high schools.
“This upcoming summer we’re going to be finishing a couple of projects that were already in motion at Cliffwood Elementary School and Lloyd Road Elementary School,” he said. “Those are the second floor HVAC systems that will be going in over the summer and that have already been budgeted for and fall outside of the referendum.”
Majka said the refurbishment of the Matawan Regional High School and Matawan-Aberdeen Middle School locker rooms took place last year and this summer work will begin on the HVAC in those two areas, which have also been budgeted for.
The summer of 2017 will see the remainder of Cliffwood Elementary School and Lloyd Road Elementary School completed and work will commence at Ravine Drive Elementary School and Cambridge Park Elementary School.
“The summer of 2018, the remainder of Ravine Drive will be finished [and] we’ll start half of Strathmore Elementary School, half of the middle school and half of the high school,” Majka said.
According to the superintendent, in the summer of 2019, if all goes according to plan, Strathmore, Matawan Regional High School, Matawan-Aberdeen Middle School and Cambridge Park will be finished, bringing completion to all the referendum projects.
“This schedule is being done so it causes as little inconvenience as possible and we’re going to be needing to start right away as soon as the school year ends,” Majka said. “We’re looking forward to getting the ball rolling to have brand new HVAC at every school.
“It will make a great difference, I feel, long term [and] the impact on learning is going to be positive and I think it is just going to lengthen the lifespan of our buildings and it shows the dedication the board has to education.”