Center seeks upgrades

HILLSIDE DISTRICT — Burbank Unified School District board members are grappling with how to fund a pricey electrical and infrastructure updates to Horace Mann Child Care Center next year. The center, which serves a majority of the district's special education preschoolers, has not received any major updates in the last few decades, said Craig Jellison, senior director of facilities for the district.

Of the more than $1.5-million worth of renovations and repairs needed at the school, the electrical system and air conditioning are standout problems, Jellison said.

"We are definitely maxed out on our electrical capacity on the site," he said. "Everything in there is old. It needs to be addressed but I think if the direction is to upgrade the electrical and maybe some of the fixtures at the site and air condition, I think that would probably be a good start at that site."

Pat Kozma, director of Horace Mann Child Care Center, said the school's most pressing need was air conditioning.

The old electrical system at Horace Mann is stretched thin as it is, and adding central air conditioning to the building, along with any other upgrades, would push it over the edge without completely rewiring the building and increasing power capabilities, he said.

Classrooms at the school have also fallen behind the times at the almost 20,000-square-foot facility. A district's facility needs report calls for all light fixtures to be replaced, along with all floor coverings as well as putting down a new roof.

"It is an old elementary school that has been renovated as part of child care," Kozma said. "So there's a lot of things that we're in need of."

During the district's board meeting Thursday trustees decided to have an architect look at the school and decide what the cost would be to update the electrical needs and add air conditioning.

In the meantime, while this year's summer heat rolls in, the board instructed district administrators to deliver fans to classrooms at the school, which only has air conditioning on the lower level.

"It'll help," Kozma said. "But if you ask if I wanted to live with a fan or air conditioning I suppose I would have to say air conditioning."

Most district administrators and board members suggested holding off on a major modernization that could cost $10 million to $15 million, because of costs and lack of district use.

"I think that the issue is that it's not an elementary school," Supt. Gregory Bowman said. "It's a facility that is used primarily for self-supporting and state subsidized child care. As such, the facility, unlike any of the elementary schools in the district, does not generate [Average Daily Attendance funds]."

Bowman suggested that modular classrooms be placed on the campus to solve the issue of non-air-conditioned classrooms without going incurring costs to rewire the school and increase electrical capacity.

Modular classrooms cost $45,000 to $50,000 a piece, Jellison said. The district would need to purchase four to compensate for the four of five classrooms on the second floor not air conditioned.