As required by school code, every 10 years school districts are required to use a licensed architect to conduct a “Life Safety Report.” Rick Cozzi from ARCON, the District’s architect of record, presented the findings in the 2017 report to the Board. Mr. Cozzi reviewed the violations cited in the report and explained each of the three possible categories of violations. An “A” violation must be remedied within one year, a “B” violation must be remedied within three years, and a “C” violation has no explicit deadline for remedy but the category is used to identify violations of current building codes that were not a violation of building codes at the time of construction.
ARCON provided rough order of magnitude costs associated with each project. ARCON identified $12,870,144 in life-safety projects at Hinsdale Central and $11,459,802 in life-safety projects at Hinsdale South for a total of $24,329,946. No violations were found at the Transition Center because the building was completely renovated in 2016. Only buildings that house students are evaluated in the Life-Safety Report so the Administrative Center was not included in the audit.
The Board will vote to approve the Life Safety Report findings as presented at the November 20 meeting.
As a result of the findings in the Life-Safety Report, Administration recommended to the Board revising the projects previously approved in September for summer 2018 construction. All of the projects approved for summer 2018 were also identified in the 2017 Life Safety Report as "A" projects except for the student parking lot at Hinsdale South. The 2017 Life Safety Report identified that parking lot as a "B" project, but it also identified additional "A" projects that must be fixed within one year. Because in its current budget the District does do not have the funds to fix the student parking lot and all the “A” projects next summer, Administration is recommending that the student parking lot be deferred again so more pressing issues identified in the 2017 Life Safety Report can be fixed.
