MARGATE – The Board of Education Wednesday, Feb. 26 approved two contracts to replace HVAC units and a chilller and cooling tower at the William H. Ross School.
According to Business Administrator Melina Skwarek, the district has been planning the upgrades over the last several years.
“These projects have been on the backburner since 2023,” she said.
The board advertised the bid offerings in December and received proposals Feb. 5. Each request for proposal received five responses, with Falasca Mechanical, Inc. of Vineland coming in as the lowest responsible bidder in both offerings.
Falasca was awarded $1,232,600 to replace HVAC units on the third floor of the Ross School where Board of Education offices are located. The system on the third floor is separate from the system on the first and second floor of the elementary school. The highest bid came in at $1,426,000.
“The units are actively failing and in desperate need of replacement,” Skwarek said Friday morning.
Falasca was also awarded a $1,162,790 contract to replace a chiller and cooling tower operational on the first and second floors of the 24-year-old school. The highest bid came in at $1,470,000.
The installation will allow the district to convert the HVAC system into individual classroom units, which will be easier to manage, she said.
The Type I school district will fund much of the project through a $6 million school capital bond approved by the Margate Board of Commissioners in 2022. The bond addressed needs outlined in a Long Range Facilities Plan prepared in 2021 by the district’s Architect of Record, Spiezle Architectural Group, Inc. of Trenton. At the time, more than $16 million worth of improvements were identified, but the work was pared down to just $6 million.
The business administrator said the bond would fund $2,101,000 toward the project, along with $1,051,515 from a NJ Schools Development Authority Regular Operating District (ROD) grant approved in 2023. The district also allocated $412,000 in capital outlay from the 2024-2025 school year budget to complete the project.
Skwarek said the work on the third floor would be done in phases and start as soon as possible, with an October completion date. The second phase may require a temporary move for three board of education employees to other parts of the building.
“It might be noisy, and we might not want to be here while the work is going on,” she said.
The work on the chiller will start before the winter holiday break with a February 2026 completion date.
In other business, the board received a slight increase in state aid for the 2025-2026 school year. The district will receive a 6% increase for an additional $29,093.
“It will replace some of the aid we lost last year,” Skwarek said.
The board will have a budget presentation at its next regular meeting being held 6 p.m. Wednesday, March 5 in the Michael Becker Library at the Eugene A. Tighe Middle School on Amherst Avenue.
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