A third of the Coos Bay School District’s bond funds would go toward making repairs to existing facilities.

The high school will see about $12 million in repairs, including electrical and heating systems, a new gym boiler, windows, doors and walls. Sunset Middle School and Millicoma Intermediate School each will get $3 million. Bunker Hill will get $1.2 million, with $186,000 going into the Milner Crest administration building, $74,400 into the district’s maintenance building and $41,600 into its transportation facility.

Cost estimates are based on a midpoint of construction in February 2010, said business manger Rod Danielson.

“We’re literally falling behind the curve of maintaining these facilities,” Hazen said. “It’s inevitable this has to be done.”

Old schools

All three elementary schools are more than 50 years old. The main building of the high school was built in 1939.

Older buildings cost more to maintain, said maintenance manager Joel Smallwood.

The high school was originally heated with steam, Smallwood explained, but in the 1970s, it went electrical.

“By the late 1980s, the technology was obsolete and replacement parts were unavailable,” he said. “We hack pieces together to get them working again.”

The main circuit breakers for the high school are so old that Smallwood said they no longer do maintenance tests that involve shutting them off because they aren’t sure if it would ever turn back on.

“If we did disconnect and it wouldn’t reconnect, we’d be stuck,” he said.

Sunset Middle School

The major expense at Sunset is a new roof. Newly constructed in 1993, Opitz said the roof was poorly engineered and the district’s oversight was less than could be desired.

“It was a process that wasn’t managed very well,” he said.

Superintendent Bob De La Vergne said the firm that built Sunset would not be re-hired and greater oversight will be performed this time around.

“We will have a lot of eyes on it,” he said.

Other schools

At Millicoma and Bunker Hill, there will be a lot of little things being done, said Smallwood. Millicoma will have an elevator installed so students in wheelchairs don’t need to go outside to use an exterior ramp to get to the cafeteria and gym.