In an effort to generate savings across the school district, the Evangeline Parish School Board voted Wednesday to enter into a contract with Johnson Controls that would provide energy efficiency measures.
Superintendent of Schools Darwan Lazard told the board, “We’ve been talking about ways that we can help to improve our schools without busting the general fund and without having to have a bond issue or some tax proposal on the district wide basis.”
He continued, “The savings generated by the plan would in turn pay for the improvements that would be made which would be across the district.”
Jason Fritchie, a representative from Johnson Controls, emphasized that “every school is going to be impacted.” He added, “The savings come from existing utilities and operating expenses that are all done through efficiency and doing more with less. The savings are guaranteed by Johnson Controls. The guarantee is very simple. If you don’t save what we said you would save, then we’ll write a check for the difference.”
Fritchie then used a Powerpoint presentation to outline all of the elements of the plan. The first part of the plan is a lighting upgrade that includes installing LED fixtures in the classrooms as well as in the gymnasiums and to the exterior lighting.
According to Fritchie, the LED fixtures in the classrooms will have dual switching. “The fixtures above the smart board will be on their own circuit, so, then, the teacher will just cut off those lights above the smart board whenever it’s time to use it,” he said. “The lights above the desks are still on. That allows the smart board to glow, the children can see it better, the teacher can see the students, and the students can see their paper.”
As far as the gym lighting, Fritchie explained, “For example, the Pine Prairie gym’s current lighting is 11 kilowatts. When we retrofit it to LED, it’ll consume three kilowatts. That’s the impact this lighting is going to have.”
Other savings through the lighting upgrade will come from installing occupancy sensors. “When anybody walks into the room, the sensors will sense motion, and the lights will come back on again,” Fritchie stated.
Another major component of the plan is computer power management, which is, according to Fritchie, energy management for computers. “When the computer is not in use, it’ll be taken down to low power,” he said. “When you wiggle the mouse, it’ll come back on. We found in Acadia Parish that this thing exceeded our expectations. The first year alone it saved $70 thousand on computer energy consumption.”
Other components of the plan include the following: replacing the boiler at Mamou High School; installing energy management systems; installing waste management compactors at Pine Prairie, Mamou, and Ville Platte; and providing on-going services.
The cost of the project is $5.3 million with an interest rate of 3.5 percent that will be locked in once the plan is approved.
Board member Peggy Forman questioned the savings that would be generated from the plan. Board President Wayne Dardeau advised Forman and the rest of the board to get feedback from Acadia Parish.
“That would help my thinking a whole lot because this board has gone into some things before, and we didn’t see the savings that was promised,” Forman expressed. “I just want to make sure what we’re getting for the money and the savings we’re supposed to be seeing comes to us because it has been questionable before.”
The board also voted to adopt a school organization plan for 2018-19 and 2019-20. The proposals would change the configuration of Ville Platte Elementary from PreK-4 to PreK-6 and change the configuration of Ville Platte High School from Grades 5-12 to 6-12 on a staggered basis over the next two years.
Superintendent Lazard emphasized that no personnel at either school would lose their job in the new organization plans.
In other business, the school board:
• recognized the FBLA District and State winners from the four high schools in the district.
• voted to accept the low price quote from Follett Library Resources for school library books.
• voted to “nominate” 641.2 acres in the Turkey Creek area for mineral purposes.
• and voted to adopt hearing procedures for employee discipline.
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TONY MARKS