BCAT News

At Tuesday evening’s School Committee meeting, members were given an update on a list of capital projects previously approved by Town Meeting for the district and were told many were delayed due to supply chain and workforce issues. 

Burlington Public Schools Director of Operations Bob Cunha, who provided the update, said the projects are facing the same obstacles that many other construction projects are facing across the country. 

“I think a recurring theme of some of these updates is going to be the climate of the construction industry right now,” he said. “We’re seeing some delays, we’re seeing some deficiencies of workforce but it looks like all of these projects will be moving forward. 

Here are the projects discussed and their current status. 

Replace the turf and resurface the track at Varsity Field
Cunha said they had initially anticipated starting the project on July 5 but delays have caused them now to have a starting date of August 1 though they are working to have that pushed up a week. Cunha said the delay was due to not being able to get the needed materials. 

He said that while practices at the start of the school year may be impacted they hope to have the project, which should take roughly five wks and the first home game scheduled to take place on the field is September 16. 

Replace the Francis Wyman playground
Cunha said the drawings for the plan have been made and will soon be finalized. The district has also reached out to vendors but they are hearing that it is likely too late to finish the project during the summer and they don’t want to impact the start of school. 

The plan now is to finalize the design and begin the process of purchasing materials and then potentially installing the playground in a multi-phase approach where they do the top part of the playground first and then separately do the bottom section during the school year. 

Putting up three field scoreboards at fields other than Varsity Field including Marshall Simonds Middle School and Francis Wyman Elementary.
Cunha said they are facing a four week shipping delay at the moment and are working with the company to see if they can move delivery up. They are also working with another company to figure out the design phase and exactly where they want to install them. 

Fox Hill portables HVAC, carpet and roof work.
Cunha said there is good news concerning this project in that they are ready to begin work and are just waiting for the summer programs to end in the first week of August.  

Field master plan
Cunha said the district has had initial meetings concerning this project and has scheduled on-site meetings with Parks & Recreation Director Brendan Egan and BPS Athletic Director Sean Hart and the engineering company to start to the audit of the town’s fields. 

Activity bus for transportation to events.
Cunha said this one is going nowhere at the moment. He said they have made numerous calls to multiple dealerships and have visited at least two and have received the same message that the ordering systems are down for vehicles right now due to a shortage of supply. 

“It doesn’t matter how much money we have burning a hole in our pocket no one is willing to take an order so that means again we won’t really have that anytime soon,” he said. I have reached out to other people and other companies that currently have vans or have buses to see if they’re looking to sell, lease or let us borrow one and so far I’ve been met with ‘no’ because they can’t replace their own fleets so they’re not looking to unload any existing equipment.” 

Replace Pine Glen HVAC system
Cunha said they did an on-site walk through this past Monday and are currently working on the plans. He said they do expect some delay in getting equipment but weren’t planning to have the system up and running before the start of the school year anyway. He said that when they do get the equipment they’ll do the work when the students aren’t in the building.

Install HVAC control for Marshall Simonds Middle School
Cunha said the order has been placed but they already knew they were facing a 10-week delay on getting the system. He said they are now looking at late August or early September to the controller and that once it arrives the actual installation is not a difficult process. 

Replace Francis Wyman intercom system
Cunha said this was a project that was approved during the 2021 May Town Meeting but it has been delayed due to workforce issues caused by the pandemic. He said they have updated the drawings and are looking to put the project out to bid relatively soon, perhaps by the end of August or in September. He said the work for this project would also be done when the students were not in the building. 

Finally, Cunha said two other projects, bleachers for the middle school and changing the floor design of the high school music room are currently on hold.