CAZENOVIA — The Cazenovia Board of Education faces some daunting decisions regarding the declining condition of the district’s bus garage.
Built in 1976 as a pole barn, the 7,240 square foot building has four service bays and one wash bay. On Monday night, Superintendent Christopher DiFulvio and director of facilities Eric Benedict presented the board with a slide show detailing multiple problems with the building, including a leaky roof, doors and walls that are rusted through, cracked concrete and heaving flooring, overhead doors that don’t work, rusted fuel tanks that won’t pass inspection, and a well that doesn’t produce potable water.
Benedict said that many of the roof trusses have rotted through, and when it rains, the roof leaks and water gets into the building’s electrical panels. In addition, the outdated fire alarm is not monitored, so if an emergency took place there overnight, no one would know.
Of immediate concern, however, is the concrete that supports the garage’s sole underground lift is failing and Benedict said it will not pass the NYS Department of Transportation’s bi-annual inspection coming up in June.
Repairing the lift would cost approximately $175,000 while replacing it would cost about $525,000.
“There are required services that we need to provide there,” he told the board.
In both 2015 and in 2021, the district contracted with architectural firms to survey the needs of the building. In 2015, the survey indicated about $473,500 of high priority repairs that needed to take place. By 2021, that number had increased to $2.219 million, with several million more required to fix all the building’s issues.
The decision on what to do with the building is muddled by the state’s mandate that districts convert their fleets to zero-emission vehicles in the coming years, and whether even if fully repaired, the location of the current bus garage would be able to handle a new fleet of vehicles.
“Currently, we don’t think the site is big enough,” Benedict said.
DiFulvio said the district has considered constructing a new facility at another location, including the Fenner Field complex or in a location behind the village DPW facility. The Empire Tractor facility on Route 20 could also be purchased or leased and converted into a bus garage.
The district is also in discussions with neighboring districts about sharing a transportation facility, but that could present challenges for the state’s transportation aid formula, which only reimburses districts for miles driven after the first child is picked up. Using another district’s facility 10 or 15 miles away would increase miles driven and transportation costs.
DiFulvio shared with the board a list of recommendations for the bus garage, including either the repair or replacement of the lift, the investigation of new locations, the development of a capital emergency repair fund and the development of a working plan “for some of these repairs that have gone unaddressed.”
No immediate action was taken by the board on Monday night.
