School board members approved the final scope of work during a special meeting Tuesday. A public hearing on the capital project will be held at 6 p.m. Tuesday, May 11, in the Persell Middle School auditorium as part of the district’s annual public hearing on the district budget. The vote on the project will be part of the budget vote and school board election from noon to 9 p.m. Tuesday, May 18, at Lincoln Elementary School, Jefferson Middle School and Washington Middle School.

The $86.5 million project does not need any additional spending from Jamestown taxpayers. State aid covers 98% of the project’s cost while the district will use $1.2 million from its capital reserve fund and $1,070,000 in remaining state EXCEL aid from several years ago. For more information on the project visit www.jpsny.org/capitalproject.

More than half ($44,736,000) of the overall proposed project being spent at Jamestown High School while work will also be done at Persell Middle School, Fletcher Elementary School, Lincoln Elementary School, Ring Elementary School, Tech Academy and the district bus garage. There will also be district-wide information technology upgrades at all Jamestown schools.

“It’s a very exciting project,” said Paul Abbott, board president, before referencing the end of his current term on the board. “I almost wish I could stay on the board long enough to see if come to its full fruition. Thank you all very much for this. I really am very excited for the district for the improvements that are going to come from this project.”

Improvements at Jamestown High School could include an upgrade to the school auditorium, creation of a secure vestibule at the main entrance, upgrades to the old gym, cafeteria and kitchen renovations and work on the school’s pool, among others. The building would also get a new roof and new windows. Persell Middle School would also get a new roof and windows as well as auditorium improvements, improvements to the gym and locker rooms, work in two music rooms and restroom improvements. There would also be a slew of improvements to the building’s mechanical systems. Fletcher Elementary would see masonry work, a new roof, work to deal with a water issue in the school cafeteria, mechanical and plumbing work. Ring Elementary would get new exterior doors, masonry work, windows, building interior work including work to the school auditorium, and a host of mechanical improvements.

“That number has slightly increased as we’ve been moving along,” said Brittnay Spry, district business official. “As we were defining our scope and looking at everything in Phase 1, it was shaking out to be closer to $83.5 million with some built-in contingencies. Dr. Whitaker and I met to define what did we consider to be some of our alternative work can we bring in to get us closer to that $86 million authorization and in reviewing some of the work that we had designated as that alternate work we decided that the flooring at Lincoln made sense to define as that number one frontrunner to start doing. Flooring is easy. You can kind of break it up depending on where bids come in. If they come in higher we can start on the flooring. Though we’re moving it into phase one it’s still kind of an alternate so if anything else comes up along the way that is more urgent that we also defined as an alternate we can still slide it in.”

Board members also unanimously approved moving a capital outlay project to build a new secured vestibule entrance at Persell Middle School from the 2020-21 school year to the 2021-22 school year. The district has budgeted $150,000 of the $240,000 project already, and the remaining $90,000 will be part of the district’s 2021-22 budget proposal.

“There’s been a bunch of potholes and road bumps and other things along the way,” Spry said.

Spry also said the district plans to spend the last $3 million that was approved during the district’s $68 million Capital Project Authorization that was approved by voters in November 2011. The board will use architecture and engineering firm Clark Patterson Lee to plan a project to replace phones, door access and some minor pool work. The work was included in the scope of work of the 2011 capital project, said Dr. Kevin Whitaker, Jamestown Public Schools superintendent, and Clark Patterson Lee was the approved architect on the project.

“We’re going to continue that work and finish that,” Spry said. “It makes the most financial sense and logical sense to move forward with Clark Patterson Lee to finish that work. We just wanted to notify everybody and see if anybody had any questions, comments or concerns before we move forward with that.”