Concerns
Tony Thomas, vice president and principal architect for Clotfelter-Samokar, said even newer buildings have to be entered into the system, which amounts to lost time. “It has no impact on the district facility plan,” he said. “Spending eight, 10, 12 hours evaluating and documenting a 5-year-old school does nothing,” except function as a steppingstone for a future database.
Although the system’s goal is objective assessment, Murrell said he still worries about varying opinions and different ways of looking at the data. “Part of that is the fact that you have districts that are going to do this with their own personnel … and you also have the different architects and engineers,” using a system that is still being tweaked, he said.
Project manager and architect Allison Commings with Sherman Carter Barnhart Architects looks
at exterior conditions as she assesses East Bernstadt School for entry into the Kentucky Facilities
Inventory and Classification System. (Photos courtesy of Sherman Carter Barnhart)
However, Chris Huffman, Metcalfe County Schools facilities director, said he initially worked with the district’s architect, RBS Design Group Architecture, on the assessment and thinks the system’s criteria for each element being evaluated “guides you to be open and objective. I think it led me to look at every aspect of the building rather than just going back based on what maintenance problems we were having.”
Murrell said he also wants to ensure that the system won’t usurp the responsibility of the local planning committee and the professional experience of the district’s architect, both of whom may have insights that aren’t reflected in the “hard-nosed approach” of the data.
McElfresh said some of the districts his firm worked with on the pilot schools expressed concern about the time involved in the assessment and about the cost they had to absorb, whether they used their own personnel or an architect. He said a walk-through, the documentation, photographing each element and then uploading it all could take from a day to a week depending on the complexity of the building.
Who will use the system
Districts have always worked with their architects on their four-year facility plans, but may lean on them more heavily to gather the building data required by the new system. KDE facilities staff said districts may choose their own staff to do some documentation, but an evaluation of a building’s physical condition by a licensed architect, mechanical and electrical engineer in relation to “health, safety and welfare” is still required to comply with state building and federal codes. The design professional also provides cost estimates for repair or replacement.
Both facilities and maintenance staff and architects have been attending the KDE trainings on the system, but Murrell said, “How to use the app is one thing, but what to take pictures of or what to record, that’s a little bit more complicated.”
Thomas said in many cases, facility directors wear other hats in the district and may not have time or the specialized training to do this. “They’ve got a lot on their plate. I think if they know the district can hire an architect to help them through all this, that they would just as soon not add that to their plate of things to take care of,” he said.
McElfresh said he knows of two or three districts that used their own personnel for the pilot building evaluation simply because they didn’t want the added cost of an architect. But the work can be highly technical, he said. “It’s difficult at times, even for us as architects, to understand exactly what we’re looking at in a building when we don’t have good documents and records on the existing building systems, for example. I can’t imagine being a layperson and trying to come up with some of this information,” he said.
But Metcalfe County’s Huffman said he thinks he can handle the assessment task solo. “I think this tool would be used by people at the district level,” he said. “I don’t think you’d have to have an architect to do this.”