Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Facilities Energy topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
McClure Company outlines energy-savings retrofit option for West Point Public Schools
Summary
At a West Point Public Schools board meeting, a consultant presented a scoping audit estimating roughly $164,000 in potential annual utility savings and outlined procurement options and next steps; board members asked about maintenance, procurement and solar feasibility and agreed to discuss the proposal at a future work session.
Mark Alec, senior account executive for the McClure Company, presented a high-level scoping audit to the West Point Public Schools board detailing possible energy-saving and deferred-maintenance upgrades and procurement choices.
The consultant said the firm’s scoping audit suggests the district spends about $380,000 a year on utilities and that a combination of lighting, controls and equipment upgrades could yield roughly $164,000 in indicative annual savings. “When you look at that over a 20-year period … it’s about a $4,430,000 project that you potentially fund from those savings,” Alec said.
The presentation described a four-step process: a scoping audit (information and indicative budgeting), a procurement decision point, an investment-grade audit to finalize pricing and guaranteed savings, and then construction. Alec emphasized the guaranteed-savings model and described the procurement as a Virginia-authorized design-build approach that transfers much implementation risk to the contractor once an investment-grade audit is complete.
Board members and staff pressed on technical and operational questions. On restroom fixtures, Alec recommended replacing problematic waterless urinals with low-flow flush fixtures because the waterless units have proved “very difficult to maintain,” he said. He also discussed recommissioning and variable-frequency drives as lower-cost or efficiency-minded measures and explained that rooftop solar could raise long-term savings but depends on roof condition and evolving federal tax-credit rules.
The contractor cited local case studies — including an $11 million project in a nearby county — and explained three procurement paths the district could use: cooperative purchasing or GSA-style contracts; a Virginia state RFQ/RFP sequence; or a hybrid approach. Alec said the district’s next decision point is whether to pursue a formal procurement method and move to the investment-grade audit.
School leaders and trustees said they would take the scoping information under advisement and schedule additional conversations. One board member suggested a follow-up work session to align the scoping results with the town’s planning and capital studies.
Next steps: the board agreed to discuss the scoping audit further in upcoming work sessions; no formal procurement was approved at the meeting.
