Referendum Presented to MERS Board for Improvement Projects [POLL]

Vincent Pietrucha presented the Long Range Facilities Plan for the Manalapan-Englishtown Regional School District at the Board of Education meeting last week. Pietrucha, the Director of the Physical Plant of the Manalapan-Englishtown Board of Education, said that the three most important components of the Long Range Facilities Plan (LRFP) are a referendum, the capital reserve account, and continued general maintenance of the plant.

Superintendent John J. Marciante said that the physical plant of the district is extremely impressive and the purpose of the LRFP is too pinpoint what the district needs to do in order to maintain the level of the physical plant currently. Marciante said that he and Pietrucha toured the district and met with all of the building administrators to discuss what future endeavors need to be taken care of in order to keep the physical plant up to par.

Over the last four years, the vast majority of the old referendum has been completed, Marciante said. The addition at Manalapan-Englishtown Middle School has been completed, the Early Learning Center has been completed, roof replacements were done on three buildings, window replacements were done in two buildings, and various HVAC work was completed. The last portion of the referendum, which was established in 2003, will be used to complete HVAC work and roof replacement at .

Based on Pietrucha's and Marciante's discussion with the building administrators, a list of projects have been distributed to the board and divided into three separate groups: projects that are so large they can only be accomplished through a referendum, others that can be addressed in an ongoing basis through an efficient use of the district's capital reserve, and general maintenance.

Referendum

The projects which the referendum would cover would be as follows:

• Intall air conditioning at , , and

Marciante said that the fact that some schools in the district have air conditioning and others do not is an inequity, and the hot weather makes it extremely difficult for students without air conditioning to learn. This situation is of primary importance to parents in terms of health issues and fairness, the superintendent said.

• Replace windows at Clark Mills School

This is the one thing from the previous referendum that was not able to be completed, Marciante said, because the money fell short.

• Extension of kitchens at Milford Brook School and Lafayette Mills School

"If you tour the district the discrepancy in that part of the physical plant sticks out tremendously," Marciante said. These kitchens are significantly smaller than the other kitchens in the district and have far less storage. "If we have a standard for what our kitchnes should have, those two kitchens are below that standard," said the superintendent.

• Survey parents to measure support in community

"Taxes are high and before we go forward I would want to survey the parents of the students in the district to find overwhelming support before we go forward," Marciante told the Board. "If I don't have overwhelming support, it's not going to pass in the community - it's not worth us investigating because investigating costs money."

Capital Reserve Account

• Directive to annually fund Capital Reserve Account
• Develop a schedule for repaving of parking lots
• Schedule will include Lafayette Mills School, Pine Brook School, MEMS, Milford Brook School, Taylor Mills School, and Wemrock Brook School

General Maintenance

• Reconsider the $350,000 Budget Reduction implemented during the 209-2010 budget crisis
• Extensive lists of projects