Vassalboro school board catches up on old business after budget sent to town office

Vassalboro Community School (contributed photo)

by Mary Grow

With their 2025-26 budget recommendations in final form and forwarded to the town office, Vassalboro School Board members had time to catch up on other business at their May 13 meeting.

A main item was updating the Vassalboro Consolidated School building, opened in 1992. Tom Seekins, from Portland-based Energy Management Consultants, was invited to continue discussions started in January and February.

Seekins and board members developed a set of priorities, which Seekins had organized into four options. He estimated the cost of each, considering both prices of equipment and labor and projected savings from energy efficiency.

Timing was another element. Seekins discussed how long it should take to get various components, and how to schedule work to minimize interference with summer activities and fall classes.

Board members voted unanimously to authorize Energy Management Consultants to proceed with the first option. Seekins listed the following seven projects, which he called “critical upgrades to aging systems that impact energy efficiency, occupant comfort, and long-term facility resiliency.”

— A ventilation upgrade, consisting of replacing two 34-year-old air handlers with modern Energy Recovery Ventilation (ERV) units that will improve indoor air quality and save energy.
— Terminal equipment replacement, specifically replacing deteriorated, unreliable “cabinet unit heaters,” mostly in the corridors, with high-efficiency units.
— Installation of a modern – digital, instead of pneumatic (relying on compressed air) – building-wide Energy Management System (EMS) for better control and monitoring.
— Weatherization, especially, but not merely, replacing deteriorated exterior doors.
— Installation of a Variable Refrigerant Flow (VRF) system on the second floor, to provide, efficiently, year-round comfortable temperatures in rooms that now get too warm in summer.
— Adding modern lighting, easier to control and more efficient.
— Doing two indoor jobs: replacing the first-floor suspended ceilings and “targeted concrete repairs in the lower level.”

The company will prepare final plans, seek competitive bids and oversee work. The first payment from Vassalboro will be due as part of the 2026-2027 budget, not next year, Superintendent Alan Pfeiffer said.

Pfeiffer commended school board members for making the decision to go ahead with the work, calling them “good stewards of the building” who are trying to solve its aging problems before they turn into disasters.

Also pending, Pfeiffer said, are summer maintenance work, to include a lot of painting; installation of school zone lights on Webber Pond Road, according to recent information from the Maine Department of Transportation; and, with assistance from the town public works department, actions to reduce congestion on roads by the school as parents pick up children at the end of the school day.

Pfeiffer said later in the week he is consulting with others to develop a plan to improve the traffic situation. No decisions have yet been made.

Board member Jessica Clark, tracking relevant Maine legislative actions through her membership on the Maine School Boards Association legislative committee, reported that a bill to make the November election day a Maine holiday is “looking good” this year.

Town officials have talked of holding state elections in the VCS gymnasium. If they do, and if school is closed for the day, another day (like snow days) will have to be made up in June; and board members have discussed other complications (see the April 17 issue of “The Town Line”, p. 2). Having school closed for a state holiday would be simpler.

Pfeiffer reported for Finance Director Paula Pooler that the school system is still within its 2024-25 budget, and should be okay, narrowly, at the end of June.

Board members acted on numerous appointments as new teachers moved from probationary status onward.

The next Vassalboro School Board meeting will be postponed from Tuesday, June 10 (Election Day), to 6 p.m. Wednesday, June 11, so that board members will know whether voters have approved the 2025-26 school budget.

Vassalboro voters have the school budget on the warrant for their Monday, June 2, open meeting, which begins at 6:30 p.m. in the VCS gym. On June 10, when polls are open for written-ballot voting from 8 a.m.