Sangamon Sun

Ball-Chatham Community Unified School District 5 Facilities and Grounds Committee met Oct. 17

Here are the minutes provided by the committee:

Attendees included Committee Members Joe Bolletta and Brent Kulavic, Superintendent Dr. Becca Lamon and Jared Koester, Director of Facilities and Grounds

BES 2026 HVAC Upgrades

There has been a change to the EPA refrigerant regulations, and this has caused manufacturer’s to redesign the HVAC systems currently in production. The HVAC system that the school district was planning on installing at BES (geothermal VRF) has been impacted by this regulation changes, and as a result, manufacture of this system won’t be available until January 2027 at the earliest.

Due to this unexpected change, the district would like to move towards a different type of geothermal system called a VAV system. The committee was presented with pricing estimates from the geothermal VRF system ($3,848,470) and geothermal VAV system ($4,181,192) and the committee agreed that the VAV system would be in the district’s best interest at this time.

2025-2026 School Maintenance Grant

The school maintenance grant is now open for applications. In 2024 the district used this grant money towards the purchase of new security cameras. In 2025-2026 the district would like to use the grant money towards miscellaneous projects, including valve replacements, water heater replacements, and controller replacements. The school board will need to vote at the next meeting to approve this endeavor.

https://go.boarddocs.com/il/cusd5/Board.nsf/Public