Petersburg Pilot -

The State has rated all of the district Capital Improvement Projects and Petersburg’s Elementary School Exterior Walls Renovation Projects was placed third on the preliminary list to be funded.

Petersburg City School’s Maintenance Director Tye Petersen, Dan Tate and Jon Kludt-Painter, with the assistance of Southeast Resource Center, SERC, has submitted a Capital Improvement Project request for $3.1 million for the project and it appears that the Rae C. Stedman Elementary School will receive some much needed updating.

“This list will go through two more revisions,” Petersen said. “It usually doesn’t change much and by mid-March the final version will be out and we can begin planning.”

The original building was built in 1968 and, at this time, have single pane windows and very little insulation in the floors and the walls of the structure.

“We will be replacing the current wall system with thicker walls and much thicker insulation,” Petersen stated. “All of the windows in the building will be replaced as well with double or maybe even triple paned windows.”

Petersen also explained that this project will be taking care of an old problem and while the walls are exposed, it will be a great time to replace all of the radiator heat piping.

“Digital controls will be installed as well to help regulate the heating,” Petersen said. “It is well past time to make these changes.”

Petersburg City Schools Superintendent Rob Thomason stated that 30 percent of the $3.1 million project would be from local funds.

“We will be responsible for about $900,000 of this project,” Thomason said. “We have some in the capital improvement budget and we are hoping some will come from the secure rural schools funds that has built up more than expected over the years.”

Thomason explained that the goal is to get this project completed without having to take out a City bond. “The funds we have are for this purpose, we should use them for this,” he stated.

The next step will be a couple of reviews from the state and it also has to be approved by the legislative budget, but once the approval is given the project can move forward.

“We could potentially go out to bid for this by the summer of 2014,” Thomason said. “We will be working very closely with the City on this.”