School committee prioritizes HVAC, roofing and a revolving capital approach for reimbursable projects

At the meeting the South Kingstown School Committee walked through a five‑year capital improvement plan (CIP) that emphasizes warm, safe and dry priorities and seeks to maximize RIDE reimbursement for eligible projects.

Superintendent Pedraza said the CIP as listed in the ClearGov platform contains 61 projects, 56 of which staff identified as eligible for reimbursement. Near‑term priorities the presentation flagged were HVAC replacements, then roofing and in later years fire alarm and wet‑pipe sprinkler work.

Committee members raised formatting and clarity concerns: several asked why two totals were shown for a given year and requested a building‑level cost breakout (for example, which HVAC units are planned at which schools). Committee members also asked staff to add an explanatory slide that breaks down the 2027 totals into discrete projects and building‑level estimates for the joint town presentation.

On reimbursements, staff proposed an exercise to show the effect of using fund balance each year on reimbursable projects and directing the RIDE reimbursement into a restricted or revolving capital account. "If anything spent out of fund balance towards a reimbursable project went into a restricted capital improvement fund, look how quickly we might be able to get to numbers that, quite frankly, we can't," Pedraza said. Committee members responded positively and asked staff to prepare a specific modeling slide showing assumed annual investment and reimbursement rates (discussion used a 35% reimbursement example in conversation).

Staff committed to providing additional detail on the CIP totals, producing building‑level cost breakdowns for the January joint sessions, and preparing the reimbursement/restricted fund scenario for committee consideration.