Before April 30, voters decide whether to condition the air in four elementary schools. The bond is the simple number. The math around it is not.
At the Annual Town Meeting Monday night, Tim Kelly asked the superintendent of Farmington Public Schools a question that had not appeared on any slide in the HVAC bond presentation: do we have any documented studies showing indoor air temperature for our four grammar schools?
Superintendent Jess M. Giannini — roughly three months into the job — did not have the data. "I don't have any data for you this evening," she told Kelly, "but we can certainly pull our team together and look at some numbers from the past couple of years." Kelly asked whether a specific study had been done around actual temperature or air quality. Giannini wasn't sure. "Sam?"
"That's okay," Kelly said. "Just like yes or no."
Giannini turned the question over to Sam Kilpatrick III, the Director of School Facilities.
"It's like open mic night," Kelly said.
When Kilpatrick answered, he walked the room through what the district does monitor — even without a dedicated heat-day study. The district doesn't put the data together as a formal heat-day document, he said, but classroom temperatures on the hottest days are monitored internally to decide when an early dismissal is warranted. Beyond that, the classrooms are surveyed every year through the state's mandated Tools for Schools air-quality reporting program — a survey that goes to every classroom teacher across the district — and through new mandated HVAC mechanical equipment testing, which the district has already completed at the four K-4 buildings. After COVID, the district commissioned broader studies, posted on the district website, which consistently recommended that fresh, filtered, conditioned air be brought into the buildings. The Friar report — an earlier district facilities review — recommended looking into air conditioning at all district buildings.
That's the case for the bond. Here's the case about the bond — the number that landed when Kelly asked Kilpatrick about operating costs.
Kilpatrick said electricity would be the dominant new line item. "The last time we looked at that, it was about $100,000 a year for the four buildings," he told the meeting.
Plus new maintenance contracts. Plus the equipment itself to maintain.
The bond, in one paragraph: $14,339,152 to install new ventilation and air-conditioning systems at Noah Wallace Elementary, Union Elementary, East Farms Elementary, and West District Elementary — the four K-4 schools in the district without full air conditioning. The Town Planning and Zoning Commission approved the project on April 14; the Annual Town Meeting Monday night referred it to referendum. The state of Connecticut is expected to reimburse 31.79 percent of the project cost. The remainder comes onto Farmington's long-term debt service, which in Town Manager Kathleen A. Blonski's FY 26-27 budget presentation already totals roughly $14 million a year.
The legal frame matters here. Giannini said the projects provide conditioned air and are also part of a state requirement that fresh air be brought into all schools throughout the course of the year — "the Fresh Air Act." That's the statutory push behind a wave of K-12 HVAC upgrades across Connecticut, and it's why the state is prepared to reimburse roughly a third of the cost: districts are being asked to modernize, and the ones that do modernize get partially paid back.
Of every dollar spent on the bond, roughly 68 cents comes out of Farmington taxpayers' pockets. Roughly 32 cents comes back from Hartford.
Kelly also asked about debt. "Today in Farmington, we're carrying a historic level of debt, the majority of it tied to school projects," he said. The new Farmington High School is the largest line on that tab. The 1928 town hall renovation is another. The 900-wing renovation into Board of Education offices adds more. The HVAC replacements at the police facility, senior center, and highway garage are additional bonds issued or planned, all of them named by the Town Manager during her expenditure summary on debt service. "This HVAC project covering all the grammar schools," Kelly said, "would obviously be a significant addition to that."
And the operating cost — the $100,000 a year Kilpatrick referenced — does not appear on the bond ballot. It will appear in future operating budgets as electricity line-item growth, year after year, for as long as the equipment runs. The town will also need new maintenance contracts, which Kilpatrick said the district typically prices on a per-square-foot basis, similar to what it already does at buildings with existing HVAC.
The counterweight came from Dimitrius, a resident at 56 Basswood Road who had spoken before Kelly did.
"It's about time. This is so much necessary for our kids to be healthy when they are in school."
Dimitrius's comment was shorter than Kelly's. It was also the only public comment on the HVAC bond that didn't ask a question.
What voters actually decide on April 30: a yes-or-no vote, with no option to modify. The bond will appear on the ballot as a single question alongside the $143.2 million operating budget, a $4 million road and drainage bond, and the FY 24-25 town report. Polls are open from 6:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. at the regular polling places.
If the HVAC bond passes, the district expects to phase the four buildings over multiple years rather than do all four at once. Giannini told the meeting the facilities team has been discussing "the potential cost savings should the district move forward with multiple projects in one year." That decision comes after the vote.
If the operating budget fails, the Town Council must propose a second, lower budget, which triggers a second town meeting and a second referendum. Moderator Bruce Charette walked the room through that procedural path before any of the motions were called.
One more document, two more commitments. Giannini committed to pulling historical classroom temperature data for the four K-4 buildings in response to Kelly's question. No deadline was set. Kilpatrick committed to providing a per-square-foot estimate of new HVAC maintenance costs. No deadline was set either.
The referendum is April 30. The data, presumably, will follow.
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