Anthony Berry had some words of warning about Lewis Elementary’s plumbing infrastructure on Aug. 8, when the Excelsior Springs Board of Education met at the Support Services Center.

Berry, the school district’s director of maintenance and custodial services, told district leaders “the pipes are not great” at Lewis. He made that comment in connection with his announcement about a recent broken water main there – a break that resulted in the district receiving a $5,000 water and sewer bill.

The break is temporarily fixed, according to Berry. He was uncertain how much a long-term fix would cost because a price quote was pending.

“If we can get away with a temporary fix, … we’ll leave it at that. … Right now, we’re kind of … investigating and looking in a little bit more,”

he said.

THE GOOD NEWS, OTHER PROJECTS

The discussion of Lewis was part of a sweeping buildings and grounds report by Berry. The bulk of his report focused on the progress the district had made this summer on various projects. He announced, for example, that custodians had zipped through summer projects such as sanitation and cleanup work.

“Hats off to them,” he commented. “They nailed it. They really did.”

In addition, the painters covered “a lot of real estate this year,” Berry said.

“I can’t say enough … (about) them,” he said.

Berry expects there’ll be more painting required in 2023.

“It’s going to continue on,” he said. “And (as) long as we’ve got the money to do it, … we’ll continue on doing it and doing it. … Every little bit counts.”

Berry’s report also touched on in-progress and pending projects. An in-progress project he covered was installing rubber mulch on the playgrounds at Lewis and Elkhorn Elementary, located in Ray County. Because rubber mulch has a shelf life of 15 years, grounds crews “don’t have to touch it again,” he said.

In addition, roughly 80% of the middle school concrete has been replaced, Berry estimated.

“We will finish it up next summer,” he said.

Pending concrete costs, plans are to work “on the front of the high school,” too, Berry said.

“We’re starting to get a lot of cracking, lot of rust … (and) the rebar ’s coming through,” he said. “I want to start replacing some of that, too.”

Regarding other upcoming projects, Berry said he’s getting price quotes for a high school roofing project and work on the parking lot at the middle school.

“Every little thing … we can touch and get done now, … (it’ll) benefit us in the long run,” he said.