The Grayson Board of Education agreed to spend $5 million to update the heating and cooling systems at area schools during the school board meeting on December .

After reviewing the two proposals presented, the board voted to award the project to Trane out of Louisville.

The proposal guaranteed the school system a $ 4 million dollar savings over the next 20 years. The contract with Trane stated that if the updates did not save the board the $ 4 million dollars then the company would pay for it.

The company also guaranteed there would be no change orders and they would do the contracted work for no more than $5 million dollars.

“This contract will address the heating and cooling needs of our schools and enable us to save about $4 million in utility costs over the next 20 years,” said Grayson County Superintendent Barry Anderson.

“There is a lot of risk from our company,” said Trane representative Chris Jaggers. “We have a lot of confidence in our contract to be able to make those promises.”

Lawler and H. W. Wilkey Elementary will both get new heating and cooling systems and those at the high school and middle school will be updated. Clarkson Elementary will receive a new school and the system at Caneyville is working well, added Anderson.

Wilkey Elementary Principal Matt Deene is looking forward to the updates.

“We have maintenance guys out here working on the system all the time,” said Deene. “Yesterday they were here fixing the heat in the Kindergarten rooms. It was a good thing the temperatures were so warm but it was hard to circulate air for the kids in there.”

The Board received the results from the 2006-07 audit from the CPA firm of Watkins, Buckles, Travis and Sloan.

The audit reveled that there were no problems reported with the record-keeping of the school system.

“This is a completely clean audit,” said Karen Ausbon, the representative from Watkins, Buckles, Travis and Sloan that presented the results to the board. “This is the cleanest audit I have ever seen from a school board.”

The board accepted the 2008-09 academic year calendar proposal. The major change in the school schedule was the proposal from Anderson to allow for four early release days in which the students will be released early but the faculty will stay for professional training.

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