By DEB WUETHRICH

 Debbie Johnson-Berges will serve as the Tecumseh School Board’s new president following election of a slate of officers at an organizational meeting held Saturday morning. Dan Gunder will serve as Vice-President, with Gary Urban as Treasurer, and new member Karen Januszek will serve as Secretary. Superintendent Mike McAran administered the oath of office to Januszek and Kevin Packard, who will fill the seats left vacant by Matt Oren and Jody Manes.

“I’m looking forward to the next year,” Johnson-Berges told the board. “I think we work very well together and really look forward to having new members participate and bring new ideas to us.”

The board will hold a retreat to discuss goals on Saturday, August 16, at 8 a.m. with a location yet to be determined.

During the meeting, the board also received some updates on the condition and proposed costs for roof repairs in the district, with Bill Wright, Director of Finance and Operations, detailing financial proposals, and Mike Gilpin, Supervisor of Buildings and Grounds, reviewing proposed bids and answering questions about the roofs before the board approved bids for the work.

Gilpin explained how detailed samplings recently were taken on the pool roof in order to check for the degree of corrosiveness that had occurred. When this work was done, it was learned that not all the decking had to be replaced, which brought bids down considerably lower than original estimates.

“Until you get that taken apart and actually have people doing the measurements and test how much metal you have lost, you really don’t know,” said Gilpin. “Our directive was then to get the rest of the roofing sized up and looked at and that’s what we have done,” he said, explaining how the roof work would also extend out over other portions of the Middle School, but not include recently renovated areas over the 5th grade area.
The bid went to J.D. Candler Roofing of Livonia, which is a certified installer of the Dura Last rubber roofs to be used, for $487,927 with contingencies. Bids totaling $797,555 including contingencies went to Morss Roofing of Romulus, also a certified installer, and will include roofing projects on the Administration Building, the Annex Building, Herrick Park Elementary and Patterson Elementary Schools. These projects, along with some remaining boiler replacements, a water pipe replacement, and some lighting projects which are being completed this summer, are part of an energy bond for $1.6 million that the board approved at a recent meeting. Wright said the next step would be to size and sell the bonds so the district can begin to pay the contractors.

“These were things we knew a few years ago were gong to hurt us,” Gilpin said of the deteriorating roofs and boiler situations. “But you get in a position like this roof where it’s totally shot and there’s nothing more you can do with it. We have come a long way with things like the boilers. Our heat plants soon will be all up to date. We will continue to do the best of our ability to maintain what we’ve got.” Gilpin also said that the next roofs likely to be addressed in the system are those at Tecumseh Acres and Sutton Elementary, the last to have been worked on, but estimated they might have 15 years left before they are a problem. The high school should be further down the line being just 8 years old.

Wright said an important step in writing specs for the bidding process was making sure that warranties came with the projects. The district expects to have company representatives go up and inspect the roofs on an annual basis to check for any problems.
He also said one of the district’s engineers said now might be a “golden opportunity” for completing these projects in terms of installers seeking bids, and low interest rates on bonds.

 The board also approved the spending of $142,444.35 for textbooks for the 2008-2009 school year to include 6th grade Geography books and 5th grade Social Studies books, and high school texts for Science, English, Health. Some special education Chemistry texts also have been ordered related to new Michigan Merit Curriculum requirements for receiving a diploma.

“We’ve worked for the past couple of years trying to update some of these textbooks and now we’re trying to build a regular budget for replacement,” said McAran. He said a few years ago, as more dollars went into the technology area, some cutbacks had occurred in the area of textbooks. McAran said plans are also under way to replace materials at the Middle School library as well. The Curriculum Committee, principals and faculty members also were involved in identifying which textbooks needed replacing. “I appreciate the fact that we’re working out a budget for textbooks,” McAran said, crediting Wright for his assistance with that. “It’s something that hasn’t happened for some time and one of our functions is to keep our materials up to date.”

Johnson-Berges reminded the board that the district also has interactive textbooks online that parents and others may view. The district also is now eligible for $33,000 in complimentary materials from the publishing companies.

The board members also voted to honor the remaining two years of a lease agreement with Adrian Head Start on the former Tipton Elementary School building. The board had recently commissioned an appraisal on the building and also received clear title for its use upon resale after the Franklin Township Board expressed possible interest in the facility. The township then stated they would be looking at building. Since Adrian Head Start is a federally funded program, there are certain requirements that must be attended to in order for the program to operate in a facility, and Program Director David Bull said that the program anticipated putting approximately $33,000 in repairs, including roof patching, yet this summer, but hesitated to do so unless Tecumseh would at least honor the remaining two years of the lease, after which time Bull said Adrian Head Start might consider purchasing the building.

“”We have a legitimate lessee who will continue to keep up the building, and perhaps in the meantime we can discuss an eventual purchase with them,” said Johnson-Burges. “That way we both have some time in which to get this done.”