• Maintaining Our School – A Continual Work in Progress
    By Superintendent Rich Hanson
     
    Our school has a common thread with our homes: Upkeep is essential. 
     
    We are very fortunate that we have good school facilities.  To keep them that way, we need to continue to update and maintain them, just as we do our houses. 
     
    It may not seem that long ago, but the newest addition to our building was constructed in 1998.  That part of our building is now 20 years old.  Other parts of our school are older.  Those parts of the building range in age from about 30 - 50 years old.  All of our facility, the newer and the older, needs maintenance work to keep it at its best.
     
    If we want to continue to have good facilities, we need to continue to dedicate funds to maintenance and equipment repair and updating.  We have a number of maintenance and equipment needs that we have been postponing that we need to address. 
     
    Our maintenance needs can be put into three groups.
     
    1. Maintenance projects we have delayed that need to be addressed.
     
      • Updating our outdoor security lighting.
     
      • Replacing our outdated security camera system.
     
      • Replacing our outdated and inefficient bathroom fixtures.
     
      • Boiler maintenance.
     
    1. Vehicles and equipment that needs to be replaced.
     
      • School van.
     
      • Maintenance truck.
     
      • Riding lawnmower.
     
      • Floor cleaning machine.
     
    1. Maintenance we need to plan to do in the next 5-7 years
     
      • Repave our parking lots.
     
      • Replace about 25% of our roof. The district has instituted a roof replacement schedule so we can replace sections at a time rather than the entire roof. But the schedule must be followed, which means recurring costs.
     
    As you can see, we have many areas we need to address.  We believe this is the most opportune time to ask voters to approve this $525,000 referendum for recurring operational expenses.
     
    We are retiring our 1998 building addition debt and the 2013 technology referendum at the end of the school year. That means we can provide the needed funds with no school tax rate increase.
     
    If you would like more information about the upcoming vote on Tuesday, April 3, go to our website or Facebook page and click the referendum information button.
     
    You may also contact Rich Hanson, District Administrator at 715-366-2941 ex. 418 or at rhanson@abschools.k12.wi.us, or one of our School Board Referendum Information Committee members, Bonnie Warzynski, (bwarzynski@abschools.k12.wi.us), Debbie Bradley (dbradley@abschools.k12.wi.us), or Kim Weiss (kweiss@abschools.k12.wi.us).