Wiscasset School Committee members on July 20 eyed buildings’ needs as a possible use for $167,516 in extra state funding and maybe other money, as well. They made no spending decisions in their first meeting since word came of the state aid breaking projections. The talk centered mostly on how to help both taxpayers and school conditions.

Member Eugene Stover called the extra state money a windfall and said he seriously believed the committee should consider it for tax relief. Glen Craig, re-elected vice chairman earlier in the meeting, suggested all of it, and the $69,500 budgeted for the energy project voters rejected, go to the buildings. The extra state aid is tax money from the entire state, not only Wiscasset, he said.

“I agree it’s their money, but ... we have a responsibility to take care of the buildings,” Craig said.

Michael Dunn, re-elected chairman, wasn’t sure all the extra state aid should go there. But he said anything that helps the buildings helps taxpayers in the long run.

Voters at the May special town meeting on the school budget authorized the committee to use unanticipated increases in state aid at the committee’s discretion, Superintendent of Schools Heather Wilmot said. She said options include spending the money in the department’s cost centers, holding it in capital reserve or other reserve, or using it to offset taxes. Last spring’s article freed the committee from a requirement to use half of the extra 2017-18 state aid to offset taxes, she added.

Wilmot made no recommendation on the money’s use. After Craig asked Transportation and Maintenance Director John Merry for a list of priorities to make the buildings’ environments comfortable, Wilmot said she and Merry were meeting with the Siemens firm the next day, to help identify the priorities.

Merry later handed members the list he planned to discuss with Siemens. Among the items were air-handling controls that operate based on gym occupancy and outside air temperature, a furnace replacement and air conditioning at the central office, resealing windows, addressing an exhaust issue in a Wiscasset Middle High School lab, and starting to add air conditioning to Wiscasset Elementary School’s two floors of classrooms or just the top floor, depending on cost. Merry states a WES chairlift for wheelchairs is antiquated and on borrowed time.

The list notes the bus garage’s fuel tank needs replacement in 2018 or fuel delivery will stop. Merry then argues the town should help pay for the project. The school department saves the other departments significant money by giving them access to the pumps, he writes. “I am fully aware that the budget funds come from the same pockets. It’s the perception of any budget increase. The complete costs ... should not be absorbed within the school department.”

Michelle Blagdon, at her first meeting as a member, urged the committee to keep WES’s needs in mind along with WMHS’s. In the final days of school this spring, students at WES were sweating bullets, she said. “We were shutting lights, had fans in the hallway, you could not hear in the classroom ... You cannot learn when you cannot breath because it’s so hot.”

Blagdon said some money could go to the town “so it looks like we’re not just stepping over them, and ignoring them ... But yet put the majority where it needs to (go), back to the buildings.” They need to be fixed before they crumble, she said.

Member Jason Putnam said he would like better lighting for the WES gym. He can’t see in there, he said.

On Aug. 8, Wilmot and Merry will update the panel on priorities for the buildings. Siemens will attend, Wilmot said. She said she will also present spending items to consider besides facilities, such as STEM (science, technology, engineering and math).

Asked after the meeting how we felt about the interest the committee expressed in funding buildings’ needs, Merry said he was very pleased. He added, the school department has to do the best it can on its own to meet capital needs because none of Wiscasset’s capital reserve goes into the school buildings. Some of it should, he said.

Officers’ re-elections were unanimous. Nominating Dunn to stay on as chairman, Stover told him: “You’re doing a good job. That’s what you get.” Dunn thanked him and said he appreciated it.

Dunn made Craig’s vice chairman nomination, saying, “We had a pretty good thing going, and I’d like to keep it going.”

Wilmot said WMHS math teacher Tim Flanagan is retiring after many years of service to students and the community. WES educational technician Lisa Hardman and WES multi-age classroom teacher Laurie Burgess have also resigned, she said. David Melgard has been hired to teach technology-STEM at WMHS; and Ashley LaCroix will teach computer-technology at WES.

The committee meets next at 6 p.m. Aug. 8 in the WMHS library.