As part of his capital improvements update for the Archuleta School District (ASD) Board of Education on May 6, Chief of Operations Jason Taylor outlined more than $450,000 in proposed capital improvements to district facilities during the 2026-2027 school year.
Taylor indicated he was not seeking approval for the expenditures at the meeting, but outlining what will be proposed within the district’s upcoming budget.
Taylor noted that the projects were rated by required projects, safety projects, projects that are preventative costs, etc.
Taylor also acknowledged there are a lot of questions about the future of the district’s facilities, but that his goal is to not spend taxpayer funding “unnecessarily” on buildings they district hopes to no longer use in the coming years.
One item Taylor presented that he noted will be paid for separately from reserves that does not currently have a price tag is a new fire alarm system at Pagosa Springs Elementary School (PSES).
Taylor called the current fire alarm a “ticking time bomb,” explaining to the board the system is 15 to 20 years past its lifespan and some components are original to the school.
“This spring, we learned that the display on the main panel is no longer functioning correctly,” Taylor’s report notes. “The office has a duplicate panel which mirrors what should be seen on the main panel, but if it goes out, the entire system would be out of compliance.”
If any component goes down, Taylor told the board, school staff has to do a manual fire watch on a 15-minute basis.
“At the same time, the pull stations and smoke detectors are beginning to malfunction,” the report states. “Because of the ‘addressing’ used with this system, these components cannot be interchanged and, as mentioned before, new parts are not available. As a result, if minor components of this fire alarm system go out, the portion of the school monitored by that component would need to go on fire watch. During a fire watch, a staff member would have to document every 15 minutes that there is not a fire in that area. If the main panel goes out, the entire school would go under fire watch. In essence, we would need to devote an entire [full-time equivalent] to walking around the building documenting the fire watch.”
Taylor noted the system might make it three to four years until the district is able to build and move into a new building, but it probably won’t.
He added new parts can no longer be purchased to repair it, and currently parts have to be found on eBay at a huge markup.
Taylor outlined a new system would likely be installed in June 2027, with the hope the existing system works until then.
“We do have money in reserves to be able to pay for it,” he said.
He estimated the cost could fall in the $200,000 range.
Superintendent Rick Holt suggested to the board the risk is too high to not replace the system and pointed out the building will still be used by the community in the future.
Other work across the district facilities totals just under $450,000, according to Taylor’s report.
Included in that is a backup generator for PSES, Taylor noted.
He told the board the middle and high school have generators.
“Recently, [La Plata Electric Association] announced that they would potentially be using ‘Public Safety Power Shutoffs (PSPS) to reduce wildfire danger,” Taylor’s report explains. “They have let us know that we need to be prepared for the possibility of multi day [sic] power outages any time conditions are hot, dry, and windy.”
Taylor noted the need to protect the fire alarm, emergency lighting, network, food storage and emergency communication systems.
Taylor indicated that, while the school recently made it through an hours-long power outage, it couldn’t have made it through the entire school day.
“My goal is to make sure that our buildings could safely finish school for that day, regardless of what time the power goes out. I would also want to be able to protect our food stores in the event of a long term outage,” Taylor explains in the report.
The generators, he noted, could be used at a new school building.
Other capital improvement work involving PSES includes a required asbestos management plan, half of the LED light conversions and continued work on the heating/piping in classrooms,
Work slated for Pagosa Springs Middle School includes the asbestos management plan, half of the LED light conversions, fence repair along Lewis Street that was previously approved but not completed and a new garage door for the bike shed.
Work proposed for Pagosa Springs High School includes the asbestos management plan, wheelchair access items, Honeywell controller replacement, an inspection of the auditorium rigging, prairie dog abatement, fixing of a glycol leak in the school’s snowmelt system, vape detectors, replacement of the auditorium curtain, a freezer condensing unit, mini splits for the vo-tech building, seals on glycol pumps and work to take care of leaks in the vo-tech building roof.
Work planned for the Maintenance and Transportation Building includes light conversions to LED, a life replacement and parking lot repair.
Other work within the district includes finishing the baseball concession stand, wildfire mitigation at the district’s Vista Boulevard property and a river pump for field irrigation.
Taylor noted the LED light conversions are necessary due to fluorescent lightbulbs no longer available for purchase, but that it will be an energy savings for the district.
On the baseball concession stand, Taylor explained to the board that, while the building was at one time slated for demolition, after the cost for the demolition was known, the decision was made to restore it instead.
He indicated much of the work has been done, and the current $2,500 project will drywall areas that were not previously finished to bring the building into compliance with the fire code.
On the wildfire mitigation, Taylor indicated the district is working with the Pagosa Lakes Property Owners Association (PLPOA), which received a grant to pay for 50 percent of its work on green space.
He indicated the PLPOA reached out to the school district to see if it would like to be included in the grant and, after the grant is applied, the district’s share is $7,000.
Taylor noted the river pump was included in last year’s capital budget but was put on hold due to the October 2025 flooding.
The board and staff also discussed that funding for the projects is coming from different funds, with some coming from reserves, with Holt explaining that is “primarily because there’s a lot of pressure on our general fund budget currently with funding not coming in from the state, declining enrollment, and so we are not seeing the typical increase in funding.”
randi@pagosasun.com
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