Sprinklers planned for FHS fire needs

In about a month, Kalispell Public Schools will ask voters for nearly $6 million over five years.

School officials and trustees met Thursday evening to discuss why the district is asking for the building reserve levy.

The roundtable discussion included input from district staff, a former facilities and transportation director, a fire official and an insurance agent. The information they presented will be added to a PowerPoint presentation already available on the district’s website.

The levy, which taxpayers will vote on March 22, would cost taxpayers $1.2 million a year for five years. That works out to a $28.80 increase in annual property taxes for a home with a taxable value of $100,000. A home with a $200,000 taxable value would have an increase of $57.60 a year in property taxes.

The money would be used for the high school district’s building and technology needs.

The bulk of those needs are at Flathead High School, which would receive about half the money. Nearly a third of that would be used to install a fire suppression system at the school to bring the building up to code.

Kalispell Fire Chief Dan Diehl conducted an in-depth inspection at Flathead High in November. While the fire department is required by law to inspect all the city’s schools every 18 months, it was the first time such a comprehensive study had been done at the high school, Diehl said.

The close inspection coincided with a new fire code, he said. Montana recently adopted the 2009 International Fire Code, which replaced the Uniform Fire Code the state had been using.

The new code offered some flexibility to buildings that weren’t in compliance, Diehl said. Under the old code, Flathead needed millions of dollars in upgrades, according to a study conducted by CTA Architects in 2007.

Those upgrades called for new doors, walls and windows to make the school safe, Diehl said. He estimated that Flathead would need 25 fire walls, each of which cost about $100,000.

The new code allows for a much cheaper option: a sprinkler system throughout the school. Most of Flathead High lacks a sprinkler system, Diehl said.

Ignoring the situation isn’t an option, he said.

“Grandfathering is not in fire safety code. You have quite a challenge in Flathead High School,” he said.

The district estimates the system will cost around $900,000.

The district had considering installing a sprinkler system in 2006 with money from the $50.7 million bond issue voters had approved in 2004. Most of that money was for building Glacier High School; some went toward remodeling the junior high into Kalispell Middle School.

The rest was set aside for Flathead High School.

The district and board could have used that money for structural issues — sprinklers, switches and other items Kalispell now hopes to take care of with building reserve money.

Instead, the money was put toward building a commons area for students — “something that gave them an extra feeling of, ‘Wow, we were included,’” Superintendent Darlene Schottle said.

A student center had long been considered for Flathead High, school board Chairwoman Anna Marie Bailey said. Before the district began to study the possibility of opening a second high school, a committee had looked at adding a student gathering place to the existing high school.

The commons area “wasn’t something that was done randomly,” she said.

The district decided to use bond money for the commons and building reserve money to address Flathead’s hidden needs. District officials and trustees were confident taxpayers would continue to support the building reserve levies, as they had since 1982.

But in November 2009, voters rejected a $4.1 million high school building reserve request. A $2.8 million elementary building reserve levy passed in the same election.

“We would not be in that situation if we had passed that building reserve,” Schottle said.

The amount the district is asking for now incorporates the additional cost of the fire suppression system, which the district hadn’t known was an option before the 2009 election, she said.

That system isn’t necessary from an insurance point of view.

Brad Salonen of Western States Insurance, the local agency that works with Kalispell schools, asked the district’s insurance carrier whether not having a fully sprinklered school would affect insurance coverage.

The carrier, EMC Insurance of Bismarck, N.D., said it would neither jeopardize the district’s policy nor cause the premium to skyrocket.

Whether installing the sprinkler system could reduce the premium is uncertain, Salonen said. EMC did not give a definite answer when he asked.

If voters don’t approve the building reserve request, money for necessary projects likely will have to come from the general fund budget, which already faces a minimum $500,000 shortfall in its 2011-12 elementary and high school budgets.

Todd Watkins, the district’s director of operations, said building needs alone — not including the sprinkler system — would require an additional $204,500 from the high school budget. Recurring technology needs would demand an additional $228,450.

Those needs are outlined in a PowerPoint presentation on the district’s website, sd5.k12.mt.us.

Reporter Kristi Albertson may be reached at 758-4438 or by e-mail at kalbertson@dailyinterlake.com.