Springfield school board approves $3.7 million contract for roof truss repairs

Springfield Public Schools is moving forward with critical infrastructure repairs required for insurance coverage of its buildings.

Members of the Springfield Board of Education voted 3-1 on Monday, July 6, to approve a $3.7 million contract with Essex General Construction of Eugene. The company will repair wooden trusses, the frameworks used to support roofs, on 10 school buildings following a change in the school’s property insurance coverage this year. The district will pay for the repairs by taking a loan.

Board Chair Jonathan Light was the sole vote against, wanting more time to review other options, to avoid the loan, including an idea to break the project into smaller chunks. Board member Bob Brew said this would likely make the overall cost more expensive in the long run.

Interim Superintendent Shawn Stover, attending his first board meeting as superintendent Monday, said the risk of waiting longer to start repairs went beyond the cost of a failed roof.

“If we don’t have that building covered and something happens, we also take the risk of liability too, because we know about it as a district and chose not to address it,” he said.

While the board did not make a formal vote on financing, members said they were leaning toward a 10-year loan which the district would begin paying back next fiscal year, meaning it would not affect this year’s budget. If approved, the district would make an estimated $469,086 in payments per year, and pay a total of $990,860 in interest over the 10 years.

Why schools needs truss repairs

PACE, the property-casualty insurance pool that serves many Oregon educational entities, has a new rule denying coverage on wooden trusses that are more than 50 years old with structural damage.

The schools that need repairs include Centennial Elementary, Guy Lee Elementary, Mohawk Elementary, Page Elementary, Walterville Elementary, Two Rivers-Dos Rios Elementary, Briggs Middle, Thurston Middle, Brattain Campus and Thurston High School.

Whether work can begin this summer depends largely on the construction company’s available materials and lead time to order materials. Because the projects will be too disruptive to complete when school is in session, work will take place during breaks and possibly after school hours and on weekends, depending on the finalized contract. 

The contingency for the project is $268,305, 7.8% of the total budget. In previous June meetings, board members asked for the district to lower the contingency, which was originally 30%, boosting the budget to $4.5 million. The contingency will be used for any repairs and remediation that may be revealed when workers take down drywall, such as the discovery of asbestos on old pipes.

Election of board leadership

Also on Monday, the board unanimously reelected Jonathan Light and Amber Langworthy as chair and vice chair.

Light has been a divisive figure in the district, receiving numerous formal complaints from administrators in the past year, but also public support. He was temporarily removed from his position as chair in November on grounds that he exceeded his authority when he reached out to the state to inquire about the status of a curriculum investigation and for subsequently leaking administrators’ complaints against him from an executive session. 

In a December tort claim notice, the attorney for former Superintendent Todd Hamilton and Assistant Superintendent David Collins stated that Light’s return to the board in 2021 led to retaliation they said they experienced. (Hamilton and Collins settled the claim against the district instead of filing a lawsuit.) Former board members Nicole De Graff and Heather Quaas-Annsa have also publicly criticized Light’s leadership.

Light is popular among others, however. He has been backed publicly by members of the local education advocacy group Community Alliance for Public Education and voted against measures to cut teaching positions midyear. He is a former music educator.