Wake schools list $200M in HVAC needs, as school board weighs how to fix them

The Wake County school system needs to reverse its growing backlog of facilities maintenance — including air conditioning replacements and repairs — school board members said Tuesday. But they’re still working on a plan to do that.

Wake County schools are $214.3 million behind on updating heating, ventilation and air conditioning equipment, the board learned during its monthly facilities committee meeting Tuesday. That’s only about a quarter of the $752.2 million the district is behind on replacing or updating facility needs across its about 200 schools. Just $114 million is planned to alleviate that backlog over the next four years. Other needs don’t have funding sources for them yet.

And that’s likely an undercount of pastdue maintenance; the numbers provided by Wake on Tuesday were only for equipment that was five years past its expected lifespan.

It means the district has fallen short of maintaining its facilities based on industry standards for various equipment. Now, the cost of getting equipment back to update is $752.2 million — on top of the regular equipment maintenance the district already must do for equipment that is not yet past its life expectancy.

With limited funding and manpower, the school system isn’t focused on preventative maintenance that could expand the life expectancy of equipment, officials said.

“We mainly focus on things right now to keep school buildings open,” Chief of Facilities Mark Strickland said. That includes making quick repairs on things like HVAC and roofing and security systems, so that schools don’t need to close for a day while some critical infrastructure is down.

The school system has had numerous instances just this summer and fall of dismissing students early because of malfunctioning air conditioning systems that leave schools sweltering and students and staff uncomfortable. During the last school year, more than 40 early dismissals occurred for malfunctioning HVAC.

Those closures are in part due to a lack of staffing to more quickly address issues or maintain equipment to prevent them issues from arising.

But the school board has for years not budgeted enough money to fully fund capital costs and prevented the deferred maintenance.

While the school board has appropriated more money in recent years toward replacing equipment that’s past its lifespan — $40 million this year — the amount of deferred equipment maintenance has ballooned at a faster rate. Strickland said district officials would like to take a bigger bite into the larger deferred maintenance numbers.

“We’ve gotten to the point where it has got to be such a large number,” Strickland said. “We would just like the opportunity to knock it down someone try to get ahead of things.”

In addition to HVAC, the district is behind $89.4 million in maintaining fire alarm systems, $117.2 million in pavement repair, $53.6 million in roofing upgrades and $46.3 million in playground equipment and surfacing, among other tings.

In recent weeks, school board members have talked about the lack of focus they’ve paid toward HVAC maintenance and repair. Chairman Chris Heagarty has said the school board has been so focused on staff raises — amid staffing shortages the board wants clear up — that it hasn’t been focused on facilities.

“It is a very sobering number,” Board Member Wing Ng said.

Heagarty and Board Member Lynn Edmonds suggested the possibility of advocating for a statewide school construction bond — something state lawmakers would have to place on a ballot for voters but have more recently declined to do so.

“We are way past due for a statewide school construction bond,” Edmonds said.

Superintendent Robert Taylor told that board that during his time at the state Department of Public Instruction, the department received $2.7 billion worth of applications on year for $500 million in lottery-funded construction funds.

“This is not a unique situation,” he said, referring to Wake County. But Wake County does have the added complication of needing to build new schools to keep up with growth, he said.

In 2020, North Carolina school systems listed $12.8 billion in facility needs through 2025 that didn’t have a funding source. The Facility Needs Survey will next be conducted in 2025.

Wake County voters in 2022 approved a $530.7 million bond, largely for new schools but also for some HVAC maintenance, technology costs and other things. It was not enough to cover most of the projects listed Tuesday.

Counties, per state law, are responsible for school facilities, while the state is responsible for education. But counties now spend nearly $4 billion on educational expenses that aren’t facilities, while spending just more than $1 billion per year on facilities.

The school system also provided Tuesday a list of schools that are more than five years pastdue for pavement, roof or sewer lift equipment projects.