Horizon maintenance report

By Cole Parkinson
Vauxhall Advance
cparkinson@tabertimes.com

With school officially in vacation mode, it gave the Horizon School Division board a chance to look at their operations and maintenance report.

Ranging from September 1, 2016, to August 31, 2017, the operations and maintenance expenditures report was discussed at the board’s final meeting before the summer holidays.

They were also given updates on several of the modernizations happening in their division.

“Warner School project is basically done. Sod goes in next week,” said Bruce Francis, vice-chair for the Horizon School Division board. “D.A. Ferguson and Myers, they’re in the demolition phase. It’s going well, they are hoping to be done in the Myers office area and the Myers gym over the summer so the gym can be used for the start of the school year.”

Francis also stated the estimate for completion at D.A. Ferguson and W.R. Myers is slated for summer 2019. In terms of the reports, one of the things highlighted was maintenance expenditures per unit.

Based on the report, which was provided by Kinnaird Planning and Research LTD., Horizon spends more than the average division on maintaining their facilities.

“You’ll notice in this one that we are quite a bit up on 2017. Our average cost per square metre is $23.224 and the average school division is $15.40,” said Francis. “We’re doing a good job of maintaining things.”

In 2014, their cost per square metre was $22.74, 2015 was $20.92, 2016 was $19.37 and 2017 jumped back up to $23.24. The averages for those years meanwhile were $15.59, $15.49, $16.16 and $15.40, respectively.

Francis also pointed out the number of maintenance workers present in Horizon.

“Again you’ll notice the average is quite a bit higher than us. Jake assumes the reason they went up is because there were jurisdictions that had to lay staff off.”

In 2014, Horizon‘s area per-in house fulltime equivalent maintenance worker average was 7,691, 2015 was 7,452, 2016 was 7,310 and 2017 totalled 9,018. Compared to the average which was 6,218 in 2015, 6,868 in 2016 and 5,943 in 2017.

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