School board OKs $596,456 to replace Murray Middle School stadium lights after safety concerns

The Jefferson County School Board voted to spend $596,456 from unassigned fund balance to hire Perfection Group to replace the football field lighting at Murray Middle School.

Board members said the existing lights have reached the end of their useful life and present safety and visibility problems for games. "Those lights are not really useful," a board member said, adding that "we've had a couple referees say, you know, this is not really safe." The motion was seconded by Doug and passed by the board (tally announced verbally by the chair).

According to discussion during the meeting, the project is a full replacement: the contractor will remove the existing poles, wiring and electrical boxes and install new supports, wiring and fixtures. Board members said starting the work now should have the field ready for next season.

The project will be paid from the district's fund balance. During deliberations staff reported the district began the discussion with roughly $9.7 million in unassigned fund balance; after this and other approved allocations the remaining unassigned balance was said to be about $4.3 million. The motion to fund the lighting replacement was approved by the board.

The board did not provide an itemized budget in the meeting packet beyond the total contract amount; details on contract terms, project timeline and warranties were listed in the Perfection Group's document presented to the board but were not read into the record.

Provenance: Meeting transcript discussion introducing the lighting project and the motion to fund it (topic intro 00:11:41; topic finish 00:16:38).