Board members press for clearer work-order reports and a district-wide capital study; staff points to new Operations Hero tool
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Summary
Committee members urged district staff for periodic aging reports and a comprehensive facility study to inform capital budgeting. Staff said a new work-order system, Operations Hero, has improved real-time maintenance tracking but is not designed to produce a long-term capital forecast without a separate facility assessment.
Members of the Danbury Board of Education Sites and Facilities Committee pressed staff for clearer reports on outstanding maintenance work orders and for a district-wide facilities assessment to support long-term capital planning.
The committee heard that the district launched a new work-order system called Operations Hero about a year ago. Mike, a staff member, described the system’s purpose and limits: “We launched a new work order system called Operations Hero. That has addressed nearly 95% of the questions that we used to get about where problems are and how far along and has it been addressed and are they waiting for a part.” He said the system provides real-time tracking for principals and staff but is primarily oriented to day-to-day maintenance, not multi-year capital forecasting.
Board members said they want regular, digestible summaries showing aging tickets, outstanding capital repairs and a forecast of expected needs across the district. “Have we combined are we able to now pull a work order summary? What does that look like?” asked Michelle, a committee member, urging a way to see outstanding items broken out by capital versus routine maintenance. Juanita Harris, a Board of Education member, echoed the request for more detail on what “complete” means when staff report projects closed.
Staff and committee members described the gap between daily maintenance tracking and the larger, multi-building facility assessment that planners and bond programs use. Mike acknowledged the difference: “The system that we have isn't really designed to do that,” meaning a long-term, district-wide capital forecasting tool. He and other staff said triage is required when work transitions from district-managed maintenance to city-managed capital repairs; some items the city treats as capital are closed out of the maintenance system and tracked separately.
Committee members also discussed the cost and scale of a comprehensive facility condition assessment. One staff comment approximated substantial study costs and suggested vendors could create dashboards and replacement schedules for roofs, HVAC and other systems; committee discussion placed a potential order-of-magnitude cost into the mid-six figures (participants referenced estimates that could be around $1 million for a full district assessment and dashboarding).
Several members suggested concrete next steps: schedule a dedicated demonstration of Operations Hero for the committee, provide quarterly closed/open work-ticket summaries oriented to committee priorities, and plan a standalone agenda item to scope a district-wide facilities assessment and the data and budget needed to support it.
