Schoharie school residents next month will get a review and can give opinions on the proposed $.25 million building project at Schoharie Central School.
A public hearing on the Excel building project will be on Wednesday, November 14 at 7pm in the library classroom.
The vote on the project will be on Tuesday, November 27 from 9am to 9pm in the library lobby.
School board members agreed earlier this month to scale back some renovations on the high school auditorium in order to include work on the locker rooms and the fitness room.
The auditorium work will still be the largest part of the $2.482 million Excel project but the cost for that portion has been reduced from $1.43 million to $1.081 million.
Work on the locker rooms and fitness room will cost about $571,000.
The entire project will not require any local tax dollars since the district will be getting $347,082 in Excel aid from the state. That aid will cover the local portion of the project since the district will also get back 83.7 percent back from the state in building aid.
Also included in the project will be $340,000 for a new all-weather track. The district already had $55,000 in state grants to cover the local cost for that portion of the project.
The current plans call for a 690-square-foot fitness center to be built between the two locker rooms, replacing an old 24-square-foot weight room. A corridor between the locker room would be taken out to provide more space for the fitness room.
Some doors would be added in the gym to meet code for access and the movable wall in the middle of the gym may be replaced with more of a curtain separation but that still has to be finalized.
The new boys’ locker room will take up 820 square feet while the girls’ locker room will be 800 square feet.
There was some concern earlier this month about a proposed change that would reduce the number of toilets in the girls’ locker room from two to one to meet Americans with Disabilities Act requirements.
Board President Chris Spies said that the sketches have not yet been finalized and changes can still be made and there will be refinements.
“There’s room for improvement,” he said.
The plans will go to the state education department but can still be modified.
In addition to the work in the auditorium, locker rooms and fitness center, the project will also include updates to several ventilation systems, the fire alarm system and emergency lighting.
In the elementary school, there are plans to update the ventilation systems in the nurse’s office and some of the corridors. In the high school, the faculty room and the classrooms in the basement are to be updated.
The estimate on the work on the fire alarm system is $240,000; and the cost for the work on emergency lighting is $100,000. Other estimates are: elementary school ventilation system, $85,000; high school ventilation system, $65,000; and all-weather track, $340,000.
New underground drainage will be added around the track. There will be three inches of asphalt binder on the track, another subsurface layer and then a one-inch track surface, which will cost about $65,000 and have a life span of between eight and 10 years. The girls’ soccer field will remain inside the track.
The earliest board members could have set the vote for was November 20.
They agreed to move their November 20 meeting to November 27, the same as a vote.
They also agreed to move their November 7 meeting to November 14, the same night as the public hearing.