It takes three men nearly an hour to unload shipments to the Anacortes School District’s maintenance facility because there is no loading dock.

Trucks have to park on the street in front of the facility, located behind the middle school at 1402 24th St. Workers remove the boxes with a forklift and then hand truck the boxes into the facility for storage.

If it’s raining the whole operation has to be done using tarps so the goods don’t get wet.

With a loading dock, the job could be done by one man in about 15 minutes.

“The unfortunate thing is it takes us away from things we should be doing,” said Marty Yates, head of the district maintenance department.

The facility serves as a storage center for items the district buys in bulk, such as paper goods, plastic bags, floor wax, carpet cleaner and other supplies. Boxes are stacked on 23 metal shelves and along the walls.

The district generally places three big orders a year to save money by buying in bulk and by purchasing items like snow and ice melt off-season.

“When we get the third (shipment) there’s not room to walk in here,” Yates said. “It wasn’t designed for warehousing.”

The district doesn’t order as much as it could because of space limitations.

“It’s just plain inefficient,” said Dale Bowen, district director of personnel and operations.

Storage space is just one of the issues that would be addressed at the facility as part of the Anacortes School District’s 17.5-year $59.8 million bond request. If the bond passes, $2.8 million will be spent to build a new maintenance and storage facility at the current site.

The existing building, built in the 1940s, is about 4,500 square feet.

“It is woefully inadequate for the various functions for which the maintenance department is responsible,” said Bryan Young, the district’s project manager.

They do building repair and upkeep, equipment maintenance, custodial functions, grounds upkeep and athletic fields upkeep. They also oversee storage and distribution for bulk school supplies.

As the School Board looked at setting the bond amount earlier this year, the initial $76 million total included a $4.6 million prefabricated maintenance and storage facility north of the existing student parking at Anacortes High School. But the project was scaled back. The School Board opted to use the current site and simplified the facility.

Plans for the new building include a loading dock, a 3,200-square-foot warehouse for storage, a covered ground equipment area, a carpentry shop, a plumbing and electrical shop, a welding shop and a grounds equipment repair shop.

Work for the maintenance department starts at 6 a.m. They make sure everything is up and running at the schools and do work before buildings fill with students.

There are six employees in the department: a carpenter, an electrician, a plumber, two groundskeepers and Yates. They are currently looking to hire an additional employee.

Each member of the crew has an area of expertise.

“Twenty years ago the majority of the staff were custodians who worked up through the ranks,” Yates said.

With higher expectations of the employees, he said they now hire journeymen.

“The bar has been raised,” he said. “Expectations of staff have changed a lot.”

Yates said the current facility simply doesn’t meet their needs.

“This building is really antiquated,” he said. “It’s not conducive for anything anymore.”

Some work spaces are adequate, such as the carpenter’s area, but others are almost unusable. He said repairs to grounds equipment must be done outside and there is no good space to do welding.

“It’s not set up for welding,” Yates said. “I don’t want to burn the building down.”

He said sometimes they head up to the metals shop at Anacortes High School before class starts.

They also are limited with power supply.

The maintenance department saves the district money, Yates said, by repairing items at the facility rather than sending them out.

Rather than sending a desk to be welded back together or having to throw it away, district personnel can repair it.

“We’re certainly saving big money when we do that,” Bowen said.

Some things the district has to maintain, such as the light board at Brodniak Hall, because there is no one else who knows the system.

Out back, the district’s lawn mowers, tractors and other vehicles sits outside in the weather.

“We didn’t use to have equipment we needed to put under cover but we do now,” Yates said. He said there are at six pieces of equipment that should be covered.

Two storage containers outside hold the grounds equipment and fertilizer. They built a structure between two storage containers to keep the forklift out of the weather but the other pieces should also be under an overhang to extend their life.
Yates said they haven’t had problems with security, but they’ve been lucky.

With the planned new facility, Yates said the grounds department won’t have to service equipment outside. There will be an area to weld and the equipment will have a longer life if not exposed to the weather.

“The department repairs, services and stores its own grounds machinery and currently there are no covered areas to perform this work or keep the equipment properly housed and protected,” Young said. “Likewise, the trucks, vehicles and other equipment the department uses have inadequate facilities and have to be stored and serviced without cover from weather.”

Young said the district has recognized the deficiencies of the facility for years. The required work has been cut from the last two bonds efforts and put off until next time.

“This work needs to be done without further delay,” he said.

Other Anacortes school bond articles:
Anacortes school bond would fund $23.9 million career and technology wing at high school
School bond would fund classrooms, stadium, and renovate high school library, Brodniak Hall
Synthetic turf would allow more field use at same cost, school leaders say
Bond would unsnarl traffic in Mount Erie Elementary School dropoff zone, build new gym
District asking voters to ‘protect our investment’
Q & A: School bond costs, benefits examined
Inside the Anacortes school bond
Largest bond request in county history
School survey shows respondents favor same proposal
Anacortes School District’s $62.9 million bond goes to voters