Archive: Around Town

As an employer you want to provide your workers with a comfortable, safe and appropriate work space.  And if you are a tax payer in the Lansing School District you are an employer.  But the 1500 square foot District Office isn't comfortable or appropriate, and sometimes isn't safe for the seven employees who work there.  "The district office is certainly in drastic need of having something done to it," says School Superintendent Mark Lewis, who moved into the building when he began working here last January.

A tarp has become part of the roof of the Lansing School District Office since rain cascaded through the roof into the superintendent's office below, damaging books as well as the building.

"One of the first things that impressed me the first day I walked in here was, 'Gee it's awfully cold.  Do they really like it this cold in this office?'," Lewis says.   I looked at the thermometer, and it said 60 degrees.  I asked (District Secretary) Jodie (Rusaw) and she said it is tough to get it above 60 degrees on a winter day.  So they have space heaters plugged in, and that increases the electric bill."

The other thing that impressed me was that the former superintendent had a big plastic garbage bag duct taped over the air conditioner hole in the wall," Lewis says.  "As I sat here when the wind would blow west it would be sucked out, and when the wind would blow east it would be blown in.  Then the duct tape would loosen and on a sideways snow day there would be snow cascading over me as I was answering e-mail."

	Up to 3" of water filled the basement at one point as water seeped in where technology lines enter the structure, and down the stairs after coming in through the roof and walls. (Basement pictures courtesy of Sue French)

Lewis rearranged his office to get his desk away from the air conditioner so he can hear people on the phone.  But that didn't stop rain from flowing over his book case a few weeks ago, damaging books and quickly filling a large bucket, while also cascading into the basement where three inches of water collected.  Now, when you look at the ceiling in many rooms in the building you see water stains and even a spot where the tile peeled off the ceiling.

Every space is used.  Stationary is stored in the women's lavatory.  When Business Administrator Larry Lawrence needs a conference, Lewis vacates his office, because it has the only conference table in it.  If there is room for a filing cabinet, it fills the space even if it is not near the people who need access to it. 

A trailer sits behind the District Office, at a cost of about $2,200 per year.  It is filled with folders containing the required two prior years of accounting and financial records, six years worth of school tax documents, and all of the employee records from employees who have left the district.  "When we need to get previous documents, past years history out of the trailer in the middle of the winter, we need to shovel a path out there to access documents," says District Treasurer Sue French.  "We go out there at least two or three times a week."

Not long ago the Interim Business Administrator Larry Driscoll, who left recently when Lawrence was hired to fill the position permanently, was sitting at his desk when the window blew in on him.  "It hit him right in the head," Lewis recalls.  "He was shook up, but he was OK.  He was able to laugh about it later."


But an office that floods, allows snow to blow in, and conks school officials on the head with flying windows is not funny.  The problem is that replacing it is expensive.  "I was hired in 1997 and was told renovations to the district office would be included in the next capital project 2001 'Phase 3'," says French.  Indeed, a 1999 District flyer about the project says, "An addition is planned to create a records/file room and a meeting room; rennovations to the building foundation and existing office space are planned."  But French says, "With price increases, the district office was the first to be cut from the project."

Architects have estimated that putting a building on the old restaurant site below the middle school would cost $1.1 million dollars.  Lewis recalls what happened when he presented the Facilities Committee with this estimate.  "The feedback was, 'I'll build you a palace for a half a million dollars,' but that didn't take into consideration Wick's Law, the prevailing wage rate, and the fact that we're looking at 2009 dollars."  And the architects are not recommending upgrading the current building to meet the District Office needs.  "Talking to the design team they just shake their heads and say there is too much wrong with the building to achieve what you want to achieve."

Last year at Phillips' suggestion the Board of Education set a deadline for relocating the office by August.  But when the time came nobody could agree on where it should go, or on how much to spend.  So Lewis and Lawrence have been exploring an option suggested by Phillips about a year ago: to lease space nearby, at least until the district can decide what to do about the problem.


So far they have looked into three options, including a storefront in Lansing Plaza, a new building at IMR, or the Advanced Design building on Ridge Road.  The latter is becoming available because the company is moving out of Lansing to the Route 13 area between Cortland and Dryden.  The building has a large warehouse space attached that could be used for storage, and  has the added advantage of being only a half mile away from the school campus.

Lewis says that the district could come up with tuition programs needed by students from nearby districts that BOSES does not have the resources to fill.  If the building is approved by the State Department of Education these programs, placed in the warehouse area, could help offset the cost of the lease or purchase of the building.  Lewis says the warehouse space could be used to centralize district purchasing, which would save money.  And unneeded space could be rented to consultants, or turned into a senior center, youth center or similar public access area.

Flood, overcrowding, parts of the building flying in... what will it take to correct the problem?  "I think most people understand that something has to be done," Lewis says.  "It's just not appropriate and I hope it will be addressed either by a lease option or by renovating and expanding this building."  Soon, he hopes.

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