Carroll to spend less on school building maintenance; BOE member calls it ‘troubling’

Carroll County Public Schools officials plan to spend less money on facility maintenance in fiscal 2025, which Board of Education member Donna Sivigny described as a “troubling” trend during an Oct. 10 board meeting.

“We’re trending in the wrong direction,” Raymond Prokop, director of Facilities Management,   said at the meeting.

According to Carroll’s comprehensive maintenance plan , which the school board unanimously approved, the public school system was above industry standard for maintenance and operations expenditures in fiscal 2024, but is below it for fiscal 2025, which started July 1. The standard is to spend 4% of the cost of a replacement facility on maintenance, in most cases.

“It is critical that the level of capital funding remain close to the amount (adjusted for inflation) received in FY2024 in order to meet the maintenance needs of the system,” the plan states.

The school system anticipates spending $24.5 million on maintenance in fiscal 2025, down from $58.4 million the previous year. The system will spend $17.1 million on deferred maintenance this year, down from around $50 million last year, according to the plan.

“It’s anticipated what we can afford to put in, not what it’s going to cost,” Sivigny said. “That is troubling.”

The decrease in spending represents a decrease in preventative and corrective maintenance, Prokop said.

“The trend is what we’re concerned about,” Prokop said, “This does show a concern. [State capital funding] plays into that investment in our existing inventory, so that’s what that’s showing, and it’s not a number we want to go down. It’s a number we want to maintain.”

The school system has a $467.8 million operating budget and $37.7 million capital budget for fiscal 2025 .

School system staff do not anticipate any facility-related problems this school year, Prokop said, though it is not uncommon for an urgent HVAC replacement or other unanticipated issue to arise.

The school system has maintained consistent staffing, according to the plan, with 63 maintenance and 232 custodial staff. The Association of Physical Plant Administrators suggests 255 custodians and 63 maintenance staff for Carroll’s combined 4.3 million square feet of facilities.

School board meetings are open to the public and live streamed on the Carroll County Public Schools YouTube channel and viewable on the right side of the Board of Education’s website at carrollk12.org/board-of-education/meeting-information , under CETV Livestream. Meetings are also broadcast throughout the month on Carroll Educational Television, Channel 21.

Anyone who wishes to participate must fill out an online sign-up form at carrollk12.org/board-of-education/meeting-information or call the communications office at 410-751-3020 by 9 p.m., on the Tuesday before each meeting.

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