Vassar schools are a pre-K through 12th grade public school district, with four buildings in total.
Despite the senior high having been built in the 1960’s a bond has not been passed in 25 years. Not only did the roof have holes that created waterfalls in the classrooms, but they also had two 30 year old giant boilers, asbestos abatement issues, flooring issues, and old technology for lighting which has been a monthly drain on district funds. For the last 44 years they had been paying $550 a month for their DTE lighting poles with outdated lighting and DTE wouldn’t give them access to the poles they had paid for more than three times already.
A former student at Vassar schools that now works for Electro-Matic Visual heard the place was about to close down and ship the kids to anther district and felt the need to get involved immediately. He knew Vassar didn’t have any money to work with so he brought Trane into the mix to write the note and do an energy project the help lower the bond.
It was our goal to update all the lighting so they could start saving on utilities to pay the energy performance contract back. We also wanted to update HVAC, ceiling, electrical, and lighting of the auditorium. The energy bond was adopted by the Board of Education in June, the bonds were sold in July, and we got to work in July. We were able to use the energy performance contract to fund work from the voted bond so we could utilize more funds towards other needed projects. The energy bond captured just under $500,000 worth of work from the voted bond of $12 million.
Since July, we've provided Vassar with new lighting, new drop ceilings, and new electrical in classrooms. The voted bond work was able to worked on at the same time, updating their gym floor, gym painting, gym bleachers, outside bleachers, security cabling and security camera updates, replacement of the water main, and even updated plumbing and asbestos abatement in some areas.
The biggest benefit of our updates was on opening day they kids got to walk into brand new lighting and at the high school a new drop ceiling. The bond was lowered and passed. The community will benefit with the first payment towards the millage when the rate has dropped from 3.72 to 3.56 mills and in December after the turbines are constructed another reduction of the millage rate. When the DTE situation is settled, Vassar schools will see great savings in their utilities. With our help, they also received a refund from the City of Vassar for overcharging their water bills.
"This experience of having two bonds run simultaneously was a challenge but well worth the savings to our community and providing the best education facilities possible for our students which is our purpose of existence."
List products and services Electro-Matic used:
Boilers, toilets, 1,500 pieces of LED light both interior and exterior, a new drop ceiling, OC sensors, heating controls, and unit ventilators.
Any external companies that helped on the project or solution and their services provided:
BTE electric, Cooper electric, R & R excavating, Up to Date painting, Cooper excavating, Piazza concrete, Harper electric, and Trane
