North Greene School District is attempting to get new HVAC units for its high school building. North Greene Superintendent Mark Scott says that 3 of the units are now original to when the new building was built and have run their lifespan. “When we did our last renovation, we got all new rooftop units for the older 1957 edition and replaced a couple of the failing units on the new building. If we did the 3 on the 2002 edition, we would have all new HVAC units at that building besides the 2 units over the gym.”
Scott says that they are hoping to get an Illinois State Board of Education Maintenance matching grant. Scott says if the district spends $100,000, the state would pay approximately $50,000 for the maintenance and labor. The North Greene School Board approved the application for the grant at their monthly meeting in January. Scott hopes to get the units replaced because they have been causing problems for the last few years.
Scott also said that the district’s labor peace will soon be wrapped up for another 3 years once contracts are signed by the North Greene Teacher’s Union and the Teamsters Union for bus drivers. “We are just waiting for those agreements to be signed off on. They were able to get 3% raises and 80% board-paid insurance with the employee pays 20% going forward.”
The North Greene School Board is also having to deal with using all 5 of its allotted snow days, according to an article in the Greene Prairie Press. The district is going through the application process to the Regional Office of Education to receive Act of God days should further weather hazards occur in the calendar year. The board will likely hear the results of that process at next month’s board meeting.