Unused funds sought for school sprinklers Brewer superintendent seeks state’s OK to use leftover renovation money for system

BREWER – There is a pretty big chunk of money leftover from several construction and improvement projects recently completed at the high school, and the school department is asking that it be used to add a sprinkler system to the building.

“The plan is to use the $313,000 to sprinkler the entire facility,” Superintendent Daniel Lee said Tuesday during a Brewer High School district trustees meeting. “This is not a good place not to have a sprinkler system.”

Lee penned a letter to the Department of Education on Jan. 21 asking that the funds remain in Brewer to pay for the new sprinkler system and a backup pump, and had not yet received a response, he said.

“Technically, they can request it back if we completed our projects,” Lester Young, school department business manager, said during the meeting.

“We’re hoping they won’t,” Lee said.

In the last year, a new science wing was added to the high school and the electrical system was upgraded. Entryways are now in compliance with Americans with Disabilities Act standards, new flooring was installed and egress corridors and separation walls are now up for additional fire protection.

The cost for all of the projects and the addition was projected at $3 million, with $182,352 needed from local funds, $201,604 needed from the high school trustees and the Maine Board of Education picking up the remainder.

In addition to protecting lives and the building, adding a sprinkler system would actually lower the community’s insurance rating, Lee said.

“It only makes sense financially,” Jerry Goss, high school trustee, said Tuesday. “Especially with the insurance rates, I really hope the state sees that.”

If the state gives Brewer the go-ahead to use the funds, the project would take numerous months to install the pipes and other fire suppression apparatus.

Also during Tuesday’s meeting, trustees learned that the list of architect and engineering firms interested in designing and working on the planned combined elementary-middle school project has been narrowed to three. School officials and trustees will tour three area schools designed by the three final candidates in the next week or so and are expected to select a firm at the March 7 meeting.

“They were all pretty impressive,” Frank Breau said Tuesday of the firms.

While the board works to make a final architectural selection, it is also creating a building committee, which is expected to include city council and school board members, school staff, residents and others.

“That group will be talking about where it would go, how big it would be” and numerous other items, Lee said.

Those conversations cannot even take place until the architect is selected and the committee is formed, he said.

“We need to get going,” Lee said.