The Columbia School Board unanimously approved a performance contract with Trane U.S. Inc., an energy services company, for work to be done at Columbia High School and Columbia High School over the summer. 

Interim Superintendent Victor Buehler said the district’s attorney and architect reviewed and OK’d the contract, as did he. 

“It looks good to me,” Buehler said. 

The board also unanimously approved a $2.5 million working cash bond through Stiefel Financial to help pay for the work, which will mainly involve heating, ventilation and air conditioning at CHS and a boiler at CMS. 

The district has also applied for a $200,000 grant to offset some of the costs and filed a health/life safety amendment to use some of those funds to pay for some work. 

It is looking to use $48,000 for work at CHS and $216,000 for work at CMS. 

The board made these decisions after discussing the issue at length at several prior meetings.

Originally, the board considered a summer project with Trane that had a price tag of about $2 million more and covered more work, including roof work at CHS and CMS. 

After board members Tammy Hines, Greg Meyer and Lisa Schumacher raised concerns about the project and process, which resulted in multiple discussions and having the district’s architect examine the project, the board decided to go with this smaller scope of work while it reevaluated some of the other components of the original project.