Buildings and Facilities Task Force

Monday, April 7, 2025 - 9:00 am

Steve McNally - Chairman

Chairman McNally called this task force to order at 9:00 am with the following in attendance: Matt Brassard, Chris Clark, Robin DeLoria, Derek Doty, Ken Hughes, Steve McNally, Jim Monty, Favor Smith, Davina Thurston, Ike Tyler, Meg Wood, Mark Wright, Mike Mascarenas and Jim Dougan.

Also present: Dina Garvey, Andrew Stanley, Nancy Page, Bill Johnston and Elizabeth Lee.

MCNALLY: Go Ahead, Jimmy

DOUGAN: I’ll let Andrew, start.

STANLEY: Ag and Youth Building, on site work was completed this past month. The 4H Building was demolished and disposed of. There was a new fuel tank installed in the basement of the existing Ag Center and removal of an underground fuel storage tank at the former CCE Building.

TYLER: I can see that far from here, but do you have the location of the band building that is done there?

DOUGAN: That stays where it is.

TYLER: There’s plenty of room there?

DOUGAN: It’s going to be tight during construction, but it stays there.

STANLEY: The birch tree is gone. We relocated the files from the old fair office, in that one corner of the building, upstairs. That’s where the construction office is going to be, right there, the southeast corner of the building, I guess.

The contractor is planning to begin, next month, a week from today.

DELORIA: Who is your GC?

STANLEY: Contact Building Systems, out of the Malone area.

DOUGAN: They’re using a local site contractor, Fuller Excavating and they’re supposed to start putting out their erosion control and things like that by Monday, possibly toward the end of this week.

TYLER: It’s hard to find people to do that.

DOUGAN: It’s kind of light commercial construction, so you’re right. You don’t get a lot of companies that want to do that these days.

TYLER: Clerk of the works, did you find somebody?

DOUGAN: We’re using Nate, from our office, as our on-site guy every day. He’s mostly our eyes and ears, but we expect with his limited amount of experience that Andrew and I are going to have to be there a lot.

TYLER: Right

DELORIA: He seems pretty sharp.

DOUGAN: He is, but he could use some of this experience.

STANLEY: Old Jail Demo; some temporary gravel sidewalk along Treasurer’s Building is in progress. We still need to reconnect the sanitary sewer that goes from the Old Sheriff’s Residence back to the septic tanks, over here and we’re working on some design of sidewalks, parking access and landscaped areas.

DOUGAN: We’ll bring back a couple of options to this committee to take a look at. We’re doing that right now, we’re supplementing the survey that we already have, adding all the utilities that we’ve done a lot of marking on and try to build that in.

STANLEY: Frontier Town; we have received bids for the first phase of the project. The low bidder was Bronze, which is the same company that did the old jail, out here. The contract award is in process. So, their bid came in at about $102,000.00.

MCNALLY: We were pleased with that, their performance, correct?

STANLEY: Absolutely

MASCARENAS: They did a great job.

STANLEY: Fairgrounds; the former CCE Building, roof replacement. Roof failure can be contributed to mostly lack of proper insulation and ventilation. We have requested a proposal for design of a insulation/ventilation system from AEDA. We’re working on that, there’s no sense of putting new shingles on it unless we address the problem.

MCNALLY: Does it have rafters in that building?

DOUGAN: It is rafters. If you drive by you can tell that the cupula vents that area in the center of the roof pretty well and so the shingles are nice bright red, underneath the cupula on both sides and then on either other side there are they’re burnt right up.

MCNALLY: You’re never going to have shingle last unless you have proper insulation and old buildings, it’s very hard, after the fact to engineer a good ventilation system. The way to take care of that is with spray foam insulation. It’s one and done, you do some cross vents on it and spray in foam, it helps with, you know structure. So, you know, I think we should really consider that when it comes to insulating that building.

STANLEY: Portable stage unit; bid awarded and the purchase order was provided to the vendor in late January. Anticipated delivery is 6-8 months, after the receipt of the purchasing order, so July-September.

DOUGAN: The earliest will be July. We’ve spoke to the vendor and it’s definitely won’t be constructed until at least July. So, we’re asking for an update on that, we’re watching closely in part for the fair in August.

STANLEY: The former Probation Building; Phase 1, partial remodel of the first floor and the second floor, south side of the building. We have a conceptual layout on the next page, interior demolition of non-structural walls have begun by DPW staff. The asbestos survey is in draft progress. They have come and taken samples, just waiting for the results and the reports back on that. It does look like a portion of the flooring in there, not knowing what’s under everything, but the one area is more than likely going to be 9x9 asbestos containing tiles.

So, we’ll need to finalize the layout.

DOUGAN: We’re going to bid all the materials and we’re going to do what we can ourselves, once we see the asbestos survey, we’re going to do what we can in that first phase ourselves and then probably, we may use our term contractor, general contractor for a few things. They’re much quicker at taping sheetrock and much quicker at doing acoustical ceilings and a few of those things, but we think we can fit it in with some of our own staff.

STANLEY: And the mini-split air conditioning units have already been bid.

DOUGAN: it’s just a quick layout, we kind of showed this last month, but right now we’re doing the southern end of the building, closest to Treasurer’s and if there is asbestos flooring throughout then we’ll do the removal as one project.

So, I just wanted to give everybody an update. Every few months I try to, at this meeting, give you an update on our other specifically budgeted projects for the year, even though a lot of them are smaller. So, main complex; one of the specifically budgeted projects was to redo the flooring and the paint in the mailroom, kind of to continue on what we did a year ago in the main hallway. So, we bid and awarded the flooring, we’re going to be continuing that vinyl into that area. We’re going to be replacing the mailbox, probably relocating things a little bit to make it a little bit efficient to go through there and Buildings and Grounds staff will be doing the majority of the work other than the flooring.

Social Services training room; we’re going to replace the flooring and the paint in there. We’re also going to relocate all the wire mold data lines and electrical lines and install new countertops along the outside walls. Clean that area up a little bit, but also make it ready to be a swing space, as we need to start to tackle other parts of Social Services. If we have countertops on both sides, Angie and her staff are able to relocate small departments at a time as we need to start doing other work in these areas. Again, flooring contractor already awarded with our Buildings and Grounds Staff doing most of the work.

The main boiler loop; we have a lot of controls issues in our main boilers here. The boilers are pretty good, but when we get to this time of year, we have a lot of, the guys have to come and adjust the boilers and controls, 2-3 times during the day. You know, if we have a cold morning and then it hits 60°, everybody is super-hot in the afternoon, so Hugh Harwood and our staff, designed a couple of things that change the loop slightly. We’ve already ordered the materials, they’ve already been delivered and the Buildings and Grounds staff is going to change out that piping, after heating season is done.

We’re going to add one mini-split cooling unit to the Board of Supervisors’ Chambers, just to, on those super-hot July days, August days to just temper the space a bit. It really isn’t designed to completely handle that room. It will also add a little bit of heat in the wintertime, again, we’ve already bid the unit and awarded it to Mountain Valley Mechanical and we’re awaiting the delivery, Buildings and Grounds is going to install that.

Real Property; same thing, the Real Property Office has been cooled by window air conditioners, installed every late spring and then pulled out late fall. That has caused some electrical issues in there, especially when they’re trying to print up the big mailings. It caused issues last year, so we’re going to install mini-split units there. We’re actually going to lower the ceiling, as well, to make the area that we’re heating and cooling that we’re trying to temper a little bit smaller. So, mini-splits have already been awarded and we’ll do that, most of the work ourselves, but we’ll have JFP do the acoustical ceiling to get that done, quickly. That stuff will be done after hours.

IT Air Handler; another budgeted project, the supplier, is Hyde Stone, it was ordered in January, we’re waiting delivery and then a combination of our folks who are going to tear the old one out and then AD Thornton, our on-contract, mechanical contractor will get that installed. We’ve got to customized the duct work which is why we’ve got contractors.

The County Courthouse; the boilers, the burners and the zone pumps, the zone pumps are all original from when it was built in 1996 and the burners are needed to be upgraded, so we’re going to do that work ourselves. We’ve already ordered the materials from Hulbert Bros., after heating season is over, we’re going to have one of our staff do them.

And Rooftop #10; we’re getting, we’re reworking some of the controls again, over there to get away from proprietary controls and our term contractor, Altech will be doing that work for us, again, after heating season.

TYLER: Jim, you say that Buildings and Grounds are going to be doing a lot of this work, do we have a full staff of employees?

DOUGAN: Our crews are full right now, our crews are full right now. We were lucky enough, we got one person that left us a couple of years ago, that was a pretty skilled electrician, pretty skilled in a lot of things, came back, left us to go to work for State, New York State DEC, the campgrounds and stuff, but he came back. Some of that was because of you guys approving some the raises that we’ve had for the last few years and some of the ability to keep their benefits based on years of service. So, he’s back, we have a couple of other people that we think are fairly strong in HVAC and I’ve got Hugh Harwood and got Andrew, here helping those guys. It’s not necessarily going to be easy. We’re going through the schedule, again, this morning, but I think we have a pretty decent plan to get it done.

Public Safety Building; things we’ve been talking about, so we’re going to tackle the controls change out to get away from proprietary controls on the boiler system, itself. We’ve got a $135,000.00 set up there, Todd, Nate, Hugh are all doing what are called input and output diagrams, right now and how they want things to react to each other for the computer system and then we’ve got a contractor, under term contract for climate who’s going to do that for us.

The Electrical Switch Gear; we talked about that a few times. The goal this year is to know exactly what it’s going to cost for the full replacement of that. So, we’ve set aside $100,000.00 this year. out preliminary design is only $15,000.00, that’s where we are right now in that preliminary design to change that out.

Then the Roof Top Units; which really started this whole thing when one failed three years ago. We’re now going to get back to preliminary design of those. It’s going to include the addition of heat recovery in some areas of the building and getting away from those proprietary controls. We just have a small contract for design right now, we like to give it out in little bites. Hugh, Andrew, my guys up there are doing what I call design management. We don’t let a contractor just run and give us a design and show up at the end and roll out a set of plans and this is it. We want to make sure it works for us.

Our Annual Mini-Splits; we’ve been doing that for about 4 years now, just an annual mini-split replacement up there, partly for our data rooms and some other areas and so those were already bid and awarded, just waiting for them to show up and our Buildings and Grounds staff, up there, will be installing those. The same thing with circulator pumps, Buildings and Grounds staff will install them and we’ve already procured them.

So, kind of a quick rundown, but these were all specifically called out during our budget hearings last year, as budgeted projects, so I just wanted to give you and update. I have done a lot of ordering, early on to get the materials here and then as they get here, we’ll start to phase in the work, distribute amongst our staff.

DOTY: Jim, I’ve just got like an accounting related, like I like the fact that you’ve looked down the road and envisioned what the total of a lot of these projects could cause, but you’re phasing things as you go. My question is, say it totals a million dollars and you’re going to need $200,000.00 this year, with you, Mike, does that stay line item in DPW or does it convert to fund balance, so we’ve got to go through this process again, next year?

MASCARENAS: So, what you’re really seeing here is for many years now, we’ve been working on trying to get a level on consistent budgeting that deals with our needs on campus. When we had those horrible budget years, not that long ago, what was cut out every year was operations and maintenance. That was the easy thing, we’re a government of service.

DOTY: It’s like starting from zero every year.

MASCARENAS: Right, so we have a level of consistent budgeting. Jim, has X amount of dollars that we try to deal with some of these reoccurring items on an annual basis. Those O&M items that you know are going to hit you. The capital projects that the Board set up, is kind of set up to be that fund that we can do some of those bigger one-time expense deals that are going to happen on a reoccurring basis. So, we shouldn’t have to touch fund balance if our planning is good, based on those two things. So, yeah, Jim’s doing a good job with planning. His group’s doing a really good job with that and getting us to a place where we can remain consistent, so we aren’t seeing big fluctuations in budget numbers like we were seeing before. One year it would be $200,000.00, the next year it would be a million. We can’t do that, let’s look at it over 5, 6, 7 years and figure that out.

DOTY: So, I guess I should ask the question a different way, does the County have a fund balance policy where at the end of the year, you’re only retaining, 30% or 35% of fund balance and then you’ve got to reallocate? I guess that’s what I am concerned, because he’s done enough homework now that there’s projects are kind of set.

MASCARENAS: Linda and I are working on a fund balance policy, there isn’t one. That’s something we’ve been looking at, pretty regularly. There’s no real silver bullet or recommendation.

DOTY: There’s no equation for it.

MASCARENAS: Yeah

DOTY: All it does, it gives you protection on one side, but it also gives you a level of transparency, too, so everybody knows that you’ve taken the insight to look down the road.

MASCARENAS: Yeah, absolutely.

MCNALLY: You can take that surplus and move it into that capital improvement fund that you guys established for buildings.

MASCARENAS: Correct

MCNALLY: At the end of the year.

MASCARENAS: Correct, right so you’re not funding it from the fund balance, there’s lots of things.

MCNALLY: There’s a lot of ways to do it.

DOUGAN: So, of some of the stuff that we went through, for example, the improvements to the former Probation Building or the former Sheriff’s Residence are in really coming out of the capital funds.

DOTY: Right

DOUGAN: Some of that is actually coming out of what was the sale of the old Kurtz’s Building, which we moved into the fund, but a lot of these little things. The annual mini-split replacements, the circulator pump replacements, all those projects that you see are $20,000.00 or less, but still need to get done are carried in this year’s budget. So, I have around, in Buildings & Grounds, I have around $160,000.00 - $180,000.00 that we just keep carrying forward and I am doing different projects with that same dollar amount, but the other things in this budget, that they were specifically budgeted, but they’re coming out of the capital.

DOTY: Right.

MCNALLY: But, I think what he was trying to say was, you’ve got a $160,000.00 in the general budget, allocated every year for these little projects, if you only spend $130,000.00, next year, you don’t want to lose that in the next year, so we want that money to go someplace, so we have access to it the following year with the additional $160,000.00, so you can keep your budgeting every similar, but you don’t want to fall behind.

DOUGAN: Yup, exactly.

MCNALLY: And a lot of times you can’t spend the money in the given year, because the project’s not ready or something like this, so, we don’t want to lose that money into the fund balance.

DOTY: Exactly.

MCNALLY: We want to be able to move that at the end of the year for capital improvement, so we still have that money for next year and next year we may spend $190,000.00 and not $160,000.00.

MASCARENAS: And if they’re ready to go, we encumber it.

MCNALLY: Right

MASCARERNAS: Going into the following year.

HUGHES: Is that a recommendation by Jim, is that a Board decision, is that Mike?

MASCARENAS: You see a lot of those housekeeping items. I say that a lot, when you see a resolution coming to the Board that says, we want to carry over these funds for this purpose and this is what’s happening, you see a lot of that in the first quarter of the new year that happens.

HUGHES: Right

MASCARENAS: So, if it wasn’t spend in that year, not specifically budgeted, absolutely has to come back to the Board, if not, what happens, after you close up the books, any leftover funds to go back to general. So, if it’s not otherwise specified by the Board in terms of some type of action, it does revert back to fund balance, once you close your books in a prior year.

MCNALLY: This all comes back to one thing, you want consistent budgeting, year to year.

MASCARENAS: Absolutely.

MCNALLY: Mike, has done a great job over the last couple of years keeping us on that path and we just don’t want to lose $30,000.00-$40,000.00 out of this. It goes across the whole county line, too. So, we can encumber or we can put it in a capital fund, if there’s one established.

MASCARENAS: Right, because in a bad budget year, there’s a real likelihood that you look at that money and you say, that’s an easy cut.

MCNALLY: It is

MASCARENAS: Getting it back in is almost impossible and that’s where you start seeing the problem start to occur.

DOTY: And that’s really my bottom line.

MCNALLY: Once it’s gone, it’s hard to get back.

MASCARENAS: It is.

MCNALLY: Anything else? We have a Public Meeting at 9:30.

We are adjourned.

AS THERE WAS NO FURTHER BUSINESS TO COME BEFORE THIS BUILDING AND FACILITIES TASK FORCE, IT WAS ADJOURNED AT 9:50 AM

Respectively Submitted,

Dina Garvey, Deputy Clerk

Board of Supervisors