Mike, the county facilities director, told the Tadpole County Board that the department has expanded since he began his tenure and is implementing a computerized maintenance-management system to track assets, requests and staff time.

"When I began my tenure here, I had 3 full time employees and 2 part time employees and lots of contractors," Mike said, describing the department's shift toward in-house repairs. He said the department now includes four full-time maintenance technicians, two part-time maintenance staff, a facilities assistant and himself and that contractors are now used less frequently.

Mike said the department currently lists about 55 active projects that will require involvement and has identified 172 tagged assets so far — rooftop units, boilers, chillers, pumps and kitchen equipment among them. He said the department has direct maintenance oversight of nine buildings totaling roughly 207,000 square feet and expects to add a 10,500-square-foot building next year.

"We are in the process of implement implementing our new maintenance program that will generate and track all maintenance requests," Mike said, adding that the system will track preventive and reactive work, staff time and costs and indicate when assets reach end of life.

He outlined recent high-cost repairs: an electrical failure in a kitchen that required full replacement, and ongoing plumbing rebuilds for computerized fixtures. Mike said his current physical budget is $11,988,398 and that he maintains a separate operational/repair reserve of $434,610. He told the board he plans to request additional staff in the next budget cycle to cover added buildings and equipment.

Board member John asked about the new asset system's level of detail and whether it would record service history and lifecycle information; Mike replied it would capture make, model, maintenance history, staff time and costs and would require a multimonth "burn-in" as departments inventory equipment.

No formal action was taken; the presentation served as an informational briefing to the board.