School Board Presents Energy Audit Contractor To P.E.Co. Board of Supervisors

The Prince Edward County Board of Supervisors convened the February meeting at the regular time on Wednesday, the evening of the 10th.  The meeting room was filled to near capacity with county residents. Supervisor Timmons noticed the increased attendance right away. “I see we almost a full have a full house tonight,” he announced. “That’s good,” he continued. “That means you all are keeping us accountable for what we are doing here.”

Lauren Andrews, the new field representative for Robert Hurt, introduced herself to the Board and audience, which started the public participation portion of the meeting. Richard Altice, president of the Southside Virginia Tea Party Patriots, addressed the Board next. His inquiries of the Board were directed specifically at the procedures that were used to procure a contractor to perform upcoming work on the Prince Edward County schools. The work entails a full refit of the aging heating and cooling systems in all of the buildings. He was assured that his questions would be answered during a presentation made by the School Board later in the meeting.

In the meantime, Sharon Harrup, of STEPS incorporated, took the podium with an extremely interesting presentation of a project that STEPS could be an integral part of in the near future. Two Virginia Tech students have found a way to import and utilize textiles from third world countries to create stylish backpacks. CarryACountry, as the program is called, has a goal of making sure that the exporting third world countries would benefit from increased international commerce. Additionally, STEPS, as part of their mission that is already in place, has the ability to train persons with disabilities to assemble the backpacks at the facility in Farmville.

The two entrepreneurial creators from Virginia Tech will be on the prime time show Shark Tank on February 20, 2015 to make their pitch for financial backing from the show’s savvy investors. Ms. Harrup, of STEPS, encouraged everyone to watch.

The Prince Edward County School Board introduced the contractor that will be responsible for the upgrades to the school’s HVAC and other systems that when improved will create an overall more efficient and sustainable environment in the County’s three schools. Honeywell Systems is a group that specializes in the creation and interpretation of energy audits for projects such as this. It then develops and installs entire systems that are tailored specifically for needs of each building to realize the highest efficiency possible.

The reason, in short, that there was not a competitive bid in the traditional sense was that the job size, for many, was too small to consider. Originally there were five contractors interested in the work. One or more companies dropped out from the bid simply because of the size of the job. The School Board decided to utilize a legal statute that allowed them to accept the one bid from Honeywell and move forward.

According to the representative from Honeywell, the projected savings of the program intended to be put in place will be $213,000. Furthermore, if Prince Edward County does not realize this projected savings over 15 years they can walk away from the program entirely.

Preliminary work on the buildings that needs to be done in preparation of the complicated refit, such as a new roof on one of the schools, will, in fact, be contracted by Honeywell. Honeywell will not finance the work to be done, but will facilitate the financing. A motion was passed by the Board to approve $28,151.00 as a fee for the energy performance contract; the actual energy audit to be performed by Honeywell. If the school decides to move forward with the work, this fee would not be paid out by the county but would be absorbed as a part of the total contract price.