Maintenance chief warns of rising facility needs; board asked to boost capital line

Joel Stoneton, the district’s maintenance lead, told the Winthrop School Board that an architectural study completed several years ago lists numerous high-priority repairs across Winthrop Public Schools and that the district should increase its capital-improvement funding to avoid costlier reactive repairs.

"This is one of the requests that you will see at the next board meeting that we continue to increase and build that line," Stoneton said, and later emphasized the difficulty of keeping up with maintenance as costs and emergent needs arise. He described urgent items identified as top priorities by the study: failing metal doors at the high school that allowed water intrusion; the need to replace aging MEC/automation systems for HVAC; chairlift repairs and ADA work; middle-school roof work; playground areas that are collapsing; and drainage problems at central office.

Stoneton put one likely single-project cost on the record: a heating-automation project at the grade school estimated at $260,000. He said the district is proposing a roughly $50,000 annual increase to the capital line and noted that a $150,000 request next year would still be "peanuts" compared with what the study identifies as real needs.

Superintendent Dr. Foley and board members discussed the difficulty of predicting exact timing for future projects because new priorities can arise; the presentation referenced prior funding sources including revolving renovation funds and outside grants that covered recent work. Stoneton said the facilities list uses a 1–5 priority ranking defined by the architects and that several items have already moved forward using leftover or outside funds rather than regular capital budgets.

The presentation provided the board an early look ahead of FY27 budgeting discussions and the superintendent’s planned community Zoom on Feb. 26 to review the FY27 budget. No formal capital appropriation was approved at the meeting; the maintenance presentation was treated as a briefing to inform the coming budget process.