The Alamance County board of commissioners voted unanimously to hire engineers and assess heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems within both the Alamance-Burlington schools and Alamance County facilities.

The board in a 3-2 vote Sept. 18 approved fund requests totaling $301,980 for the Alamance-Burlington School District so that the district can fund roofing repairs at B. Everett Jordan Elementary, Western High and Western Middle Schools. 

Since ABSS has no taxing authority, all funds for the school district go through the County Commissioners, who then give money to ABSS

According to the board of commissioners, Western Alamance High School has significant leaks throughout the building. Graham Middle School is also on the board’s radar for having roofing issues, according to ABSS. 

In the wake of the discovery of mold in August, Builder Services Inc. of North Carolina was hired to conduct remediation services inside ABSS facilities. Ben Bass, the executive vice president of Builder Services spoke before the county commissioners about the mold remediation roof leaks. 

“When I tell you these buildings are leaking, I'm not talking about a drip, drip. We're talking it’ll fill up a 44 gallon trash can in less than an hour. They're leaking that bad in certain places,” Bass said. 

Bass commented on the visual condition of Southern Alamance High School’s roof. 

“Part of it looks worse than Interstate I-95 from the top,” Bass said. “It's got so many patches and stuff.”

According to Greg Hook, ABSS chief operations officer, ABSS has been strained with roof maintenance because the school district is understaffed for maintenance. Hook spoke at the meeting about what ABSS is doing to address maintenance issues. 

“We have no one that does preventive maintenance on roofs and we just don't do preventative maintenance,” Hook said. 

Bass warned that roof leaks inside ABSS facilities will lead to a resurgence of mold unless the district addresses roof issues. He cautioned against sitting on this information and advocated for immediate action.

Following the announcement of mold inside ABSS schools across the district in late August, the district has spent $21 million dollars — exceeding their earlier budget of $17 million — in order to open for the first day of school. Originally scheduled for Aug. 28, ABSS delayed the start of the school year by roughly two weeks to Sept. 11. 

With only 20 full-time maintenance staff for 41 schools, ABSS also presented a proposal to hire more personnel for preventative maintenance and service contract management — at an estimated $2 million per year.