The Board of Education was told tonight that next year’s school budget may be up 4.1 percent and that hidden mold at Coleytown Middle School (CMS), which is not a health hazard, may cost as much as $250,000 to remediate.
Colleen Palmer: budget number “daunting.” Dave Matlow for WestportNow.com
Schools Superintendent Colleen Palmer, who took over July 1 from retiring Elliott Landon, informed the board about the budget and health issues and said the budget number was “a very preliminary one.”
“If we kept the same workforce and just moved those folks forward a year and followed our bargaining union contracts… and projected increase in health costs, we would have to ask for an increase of 4.1 percent,” she said. “That number is daunting.”
She reminded board members that the current operating budget, which increased 1.29 percent over the previous year, benefitted from “positive trends” in the health reserve account as well as other factors.
Palmer said she had spoken to members of the Board of Finance and Representative Town Meeting (RTM) about the prelimary budget figure and that she would be looking at efficiencies and all other means to maintain the high quality of education delivered to students.
On the CMS mold issue, she said a “cluster of classrooms” – later pinpointed by Elio Longo, director of school business operations, as five—had been remediated due to “a design flaw in the unit ventilator in the wall and perhaps, possibly some substandard insulation.”
This had allowed moisture, condensation over time to collect in that wall, and “when you have moisture in the wall, that is not a good thing,” Palmer said.
She added that anything that was exposed was remediated and that the only mold remaining is called “hidden mold” behind the walls.
“Because of that, there is no health hazard to anyone in the building at this time,” Palmer said. “The environmental consultant said we really have the gift of time until the end of the year at vacation periods to remediate the rest of the classrooms.”
Longo said 30 CMS classrooms had been identified with inferior faulty cooling system design dating back 20 years that had allowed a buildup of condensation. To date, 14 of the 30 classrooms have been investigated, nine were negative and five were remediated, he said.
Dry wall and ceiling tiles encapsulated the mold, first discovered in room 133, Longo said.
Longo said the cost of remediation could be $200,000 to $250,000. Palmer said the unanticipated expense in the operating budget may be difficult to manage and there may be discussions about using the carryover budget to pay for it.
She said CMS parents had been made aware of the problem several weeks ago.
Asked by board member Vik Muktacaram if other older schools might have mold issues, Longo said he was sure most buildings and homes over time have some hidden mold growth.
“Do we have concern at this time that we should test every single classroom? That may be prohibitive given that there are no signs of mold spores on interior walls,” he said. He added that universal air quality testing might be something to think about.
Mold issues at CMS and other Westport schools have been a recurring problem over the years. In 2013, Landon told the board that mold had been found in CMS ceiling tiles.
In 2014, the school board criticized Landon for not informing it of the magnitude of a $1.65 million cost overrun to remediate mold at Kings Highway Elementary School.
In 2007, a mold problem at Kings Highway resulted in appointment by then First Selectman Gordon Joseloff of a special task force to remediate the issue when parents complained Landon had failed to take the lead on the problem.
