2024, 2025, 2026 Information page:
Summer 2024 - Asbestos Abatement lower elementary, 5 HS rooms, new flooring in lower elementary - Completed LTFM project
Summer 2025 - Asbestos Abatement - all remaining classrooms in HS, upper elementary, band/choir/ag classroom, library/contract approvals for IAQ project in 2026. In progress - LTFM project
Summer 2026 - New Boiler, New electrical entire building, HVAC units throughout the building for to meet ventilation codes, New LED lights throughout the building, new ceilings throughout the building, Fire SAFETY - sprinkler system throughout the building, upgraded fire alarm system. In progress - LTFM project
This Narrative will explain how the district was required to make the upgrades and circumstances leading up to the decision to create the project and fund it through the Long Term Facilities Maintenance Bonds program as approved by the legilsture. The legislature gives school boards in Minnesota the authority to bond dollars without a public election for projects under specific regulations including upgrading facilities in the area of Indoor Air Quality.
These upgrades will ensure that the building is properly ventilated, has a new heating system, new ceilings, lights, 100% asbestos removed in all areas including classrooms, tunnels, piping, upgrades flooring in specific areas, all mechanical systems will be on systems controls monitored 24 hours per day. NEW fire suppression sprinkling system throughout the building and upgraded fire alarm panel with voice enunciation.
Urgent Issues
1) In the spring of 2022, the entire gym addition was flooded underground by a water main break. The district had to pay over $120,000 in equipment repair as well as indoor air quality prevention measures because of mold and other issues that could have had adverse affects. This was done successfully for safety. Other air quality issues began to be studied and results reported to the board.
2) In the winter of 2024 the tunnels below the 1956 pre-school and early learning wing had issues with steam traps for the boiler system that were in excess of 60 years old. There was extensive damage to the classrooms and activity room. Insurance paid a portion for floors to be replaced. This included asbestos abatement of the classrooms and the activity room. These rooms were already scheduled for abatement because of the asbestos issues in the school.
3) In the spring of 2024, the district had a study done on the building that resulted in the board being required to have serious conversations about the state of the building and its future. The board hired SiteLogiQ Inc. consulting firm to inspect and report back on all of the the building systems. These reports came back unfavorable to the building including serious threats such as evidence of fires in the tunnels over time because of electrical issues, steam pipes broken, disrepair, thousands of dollars in repair costs per year, inadequate venitliation per legislative guidelines for classrooms and other areas because of antiquated mechanical systems including Univents, asbestos flooring, in ceiling tiles, piping and insulation in all buildings. These were among many issues discussed and are all documented in the document entitled System Age Summary above.
4) Insurance DENIAl for entire building, grounds and automobiles in April of 2024, the district faced not being insured by EMC insurance and was denied coverage because of the age of the following: electrical, boiler system, roofs, asbestos abatement, and other concerns.
Introduction:
The above issues as well as other systems problems forced the Truman Public School Board to begin researching options for updating systems in the building. The district began working with Baker Tilly, financial advisors, The MInnesota Department of Education, to get approvals for potential required work on Indoor Air Quality projects, the district Health and Safety Coordinator, SitelogiQ Project Engineers and EMS insurance. It was determined that many areas of the building were required to be updated and that the asbestos abatement projects that the district had scheduled over a period of several years would need to continue as planned prior to the other projects. Note: The authority to bond dollars does not mean that the dollars will be spent. Any dollars that are bonded that are not used as part of the IAQ project are returned to the taxpayers unless otherwise noted.
Timeline:
2021,22,23,24,25 - serious boiler issues and repairs needed in excess of $15,000 per year
2022 - Water Main Break - cleaning and replacement of air handlers, coils etc.. for ventilation purposes were cleaned and repaced for an antiquated and old system.
December 2023 - Steam leak discovered and insurance claim started for lower elementary and activiity room for abatement and flooring replacement during summer of 2024.
April 2024 - Study of the building completed and presentation to the board
April 2024 - EMS insurance denied coverage to the entire building because of lack of updated mechanical systems, boilers, potential roofs, and electrical. District tried to get other insurance. This was also denied.
May 2024 - Conditional approval from EMS insurance with district assurance of completing projects within specified timeline.
May 2024 - Bid notice sent and bids received for summer asbestos abatement projects in lower elementary and 5 HS school classrooms.
June 2024 - Site Logic finalized project at 12.3 million dollars with addtional funded for municipal advisor, attorney fees.
July 2024 - asbestos removal in lower elementary and HS rooms
August - floor replacement in lower elementary rooms, non- wax floors - HS rooms will be completed when all rooms are done - all floors will be sanded and polished per the project to save yearly dollars on waxing for the district.
September/October 2024 - Bond Sale approved by TPS Board of Education
October 2024 - Bond Sale
October - May 2024-2025 - Project Narratives submitted, architectual designs in mechanical, electrical, plumbing, controls, and general contractor were created.
March - April 2025 - Bid notice approved and sent to Truman Tribune
April 14th, 2025 - pre-bid walkthrough
May 8, 2025 - Bids opened
May 2025 - 2nd Conditional renewal by EMC insurance based on project completion. Plans submitted.
June 5th - Bids accepted by the board in mechanical, electrical, controls and general contractor service
June 16th - Bids accepted for asbestos removal in July 2025
July 2025 - Asbestos abatement of HS rooms and gym addition, band, choir, ag classroom and library scheduled
July / August - Planning meetings for summer 2026 work
Information from June 5th board meeting:
The Truman Public School Board met on June 5th to approve bids from contractors for the Indoor Air Quality Project The following bids were accepted by the board: Motioned by Heckman, and seconded by Brudelie, to accept the low bids for the indoor IAQ project as presented by Site Logic for Mechanical: Harty Mechanical, $5,895.000, General Contractor: Joseph Company $2,232,000, Electrical/Fire Panel: Master Electric 1,915,205.000, Temperature Controls: Paape Companies: $370,370,000, Test and Balance: Premier Test and Balance: $44,900, MechanicalEquipment: $1,109,871.00, City of Truman: Transformer-$30,482.00 - Total $11.597,828.00.
Note, This project is not new. There has been information regarding this project in the newspapers, discussed at board meetings and an invitation to tax payers to come to “truth and taxation” was extended last year with a tentative plan. Board members and administration fielded many questions prior to making final decisions from taxpayers and were able to answer the questions positively. Please see the fullscope of the district upgrades, narrative on the project history as well as comparison charts to other school districts that have done facility upgrades to their buildings.
The Beginning
The IAQ project started as a consultation with SitelogiQ Inc. in February of 2024. The board asked them to survey the building needs based on the age of the buildings. The areas that they focused on were mechanical including boiler, HVAC, the exhaust hood in the kitchen, electrical, all buildings, asbestos remaining in the building, age of roofs,parking lot areas, windows, efficiency, life safety including sprinkler systems, fire alarm system. A report to the board on this survey was presented in April 2024. The presentation included a slide with the systems age summary. It showed that the building had much needed areas of updating because of safety issues. The wiring in the 1935 building is 90 years old, and in the other buildings as old as when they were built from 1957 – 1962. Many electrical distribution panels are over from 50 – 90 years old. The boilers are is 30+ to 50+ years old, but many of the steam runs throughout the building are 65-90 years old. The building has unit ventilators that are from 25 – 65 years old and need to be updated because of the legal compliance issues with air quality in the schools. The lights in the building All of these items plus many more are on this list. The list of items also included much needed plumbing upgrades, parking and sidewalk, but these projects are not able to be completed at this time. The board met and were presented with plans that started upwards of $25 million to complete al projects down to $10,000 million in estimates that did not cover all of the required upgrades for insurance coverage. A project that covered the required elements was chosen at 12.3 million to be funded out of Long Term Facilities Maintanenace bonding authority by the TPS board of education.
Insurance Issues
While the district was contemplating what work could or should be done to update the very outdated systems for safety, there was another push which made the project required based on finding affordable insurance. The current company, EMS Insurance, a company that serves numerous school districts and one of a very few that will still insure school districts put out a letter to many districts including Truman. This letter was dated April 2024 and stated that there were required updates to be done to the older buildings or insurance coverage for Commercial property, General Liability Occurrence, Commercial Automobile, Linebacker and Umbrella Liability would cease on July 1, 2024. The district consulted with the Minnesota School Board Association Insurance fund and also contacted other brokers. This was a situation that was not going away The district had to come up with a plan to present to them so that there was insurance. The only other option that the district had was to go into the Mn. State Insurance pool. Each of the 6 different areas would be separate policies and together would have cost the district in the hundreds of thousands of dollars per year to insure. The policies from EMC are at $60,000 or less for all areas. The areas were: . In order to be insured the district began planning with site logicfor the required systems upgrades.
Moving Forward:
The district created a tentative plan from a “menu” of items that included all of the required upgrades for insurance coverage and also meet all other legal requirements with air quality. With the projects chosen, the original estimates from Site Logic was projected to cost $12.3 million dollars with 2.3 million going to the design teams at SiteLogiQ. The district voted to approve the project. In the original agreement with SiteLogiQ the district agreed to the fee schedule. The projects agreed upon were to upgrade the boiler system to hot water heat and abandon all steam boilers and pipes throughout the building. Abandon all unit ventilators and set HVAC rooftop units for air exchange and air quality. In order to provide the correct structure for these upgrades any room that does not have a drop- ceiling will be remodeled.Electrical systems including all wiring, lights and electrical panels will be upgrades to new. All of the asbestos will be abated. This started in a phase last summer. We will continue with phase 2 this summer and phase 3 next summer. After this summer, all of the classrooms and spaces with asbestos containing floors will be removed. Many floors are concrete and will be polished. In the spring of 2025, the project was still not in place and the district found out that with the scope of the project, Minnesota building codes required that the buildings be (fire) sprinkled for life safety. This cost many hundreds of thousands of dollars extra, but the district worked with Sitelogiq to value engineer the project down in scope and dollars so that even with the new addition of life safety, all components still fit into the original budget from the spring of 2024. The district advertised for bids for 2 weeks in the Truman Tribune - local paper.
Funding Process:
In the fall of 2024 the district worked with BakerTilly who is a financial advising company to school districts. They assisted the district in understanding the process of bonding dollars for Long Term Facility Maintenance IAQ projects. The Truman project was submitted to the Department of Education for approval. This submission can be found on the district website. In Minnesota there are a few areas that school boards have the authority to sell bonds without voter approval. Indoor Air Quality is one of the main areas. The other areas that would be available, the board chose not to use any authority to spend dollars on.In order to get the funding. The district also had to go through interviews for a “bond rating. This was brand new to the district and it all depends on the financial health of the district on what “grade” one will get with this rating. The great news with this is that with the fact that the district was almost closed by the legislature less than 5 years ago, the district attained an “A” rating. With this rating the bond sale produced and additional 1.1 million dollars in bond premium to be used for the project but NOT to be paid back as part of the outstanding indebtedness. This was bonus for the district. After the initial bonding was completed, The board was adamant that the project needed to fit within the parameters of the money available and shared many times that they would not be willing to bond any additional dollars. The reality is that the project did stay the same after the actual bids were in with the additional life safety measures added and a work from both sides.
State Aid on Agricultural land
The state of Minnesota has an Ag to School tax credit which positively assists those with agricultural land fund bonded projects. In the past agricultural land was taxed at 100%. With this credit, the state of Mn. pays 70% of the cost of the bond per acre. The agricultural land is taxed at the remainder 30%. The updated tax impact statements now that the project has been formally approved will be located on the school website under Truman Public School IAQ project. The Department of Revenue pays the tax to the district yearly.
Comparison:
The Truman Public School has to make these upgrades to its facility but more importantly should WANT and be supported to make these upgrades to the facilities for our students and for the future of the district. In comparison to other school district tax rates, levies and debt service (outstanding debt for building projects), please see the following: This chart includes facility upgrade project Debt service levy surrounding the Truman Public School District.
