A major heat wave in central North Carolina closed in on the Triangle this week. Combine that with widespread HVAC issues across Wake County schools, and that leaves students, parents and staff left to face early dismissals and closures.
Sound familiar? The quote was from a story in the News and Observer from September 8, 2023 — over three years ago.
From the recent spate of HVAC stories in Wake County Public Schools (see here, here and here) , the HVAC issue is far from resolved
WCPSS says current HVAC issues are rooted in a variety of problems. The district’s deferred maintenance backlog is near $800 million dollars and infrastructure at many schools is starting to breakdown. About $200 million of the $800 million deferred maintenance backlog is HVAC repairs. Shortages of HVAC technicians in recent years have also contributed to repair delays as did difficulties in securing needed parts.
Now the district wants to pay for many of the HVAC repairs via a $680 million dollar school board bond referendum which is on the November ballot in Wake County. The bond includes $156.8 million dedicated exclusively to systemwide infrastructure updates such as replacing aging HVAC unites and chillers. The district says an additional $372.2 million is marked for modernization projects at a variety of schools including gutting and replacing outdated HVAC networks.
Numerous people have made the point that current HVAC problems are a product of years of deferred maintenance and trying scrimp on maintenance costs. The size and scope of the problem has been known for years.
An article earlier this year on WRAl.com spoke to the depth of the problem.
HVAC issues are a long-standing problem in Wake County schools. During the 2024-2025 school year, Wake schools closed or dismissed early 46 times due to HVAC issues.
Last year, the school system added training for some school employees to help identify problems faster.
Wake County Public School System Chief of Facilities and Operations Mark Strickland said the district has made some progress in replacing HVACs at schools, but the big issue is their maintenance. He said the district is having trouble funding those positions and paying staff.
“We have not done a great job of maintaining things that comes down to budget and staffing and what we can pay people,” Strickland said.
The district has modified its capital improvement plan and allocated more money to help offset $200 million in deferred maintenance. Strickland there was between $40 million and $45 million allocated in 2025-26 to work on school HVAC systems. It is nearly double what the district spent on HVACs in 2022-23, Strickland said.
“We do need to increase our capacity to manage and maintain these schools, and that’s going to be a budget challenge that the district is going to have to work on this coming year,” he said.
Strickland alludes to the budget and staffing challenges the district has had in managing the issues.
If WCPSS leaders have known about the scope of the problem for the last few years and its growing costs why didn’t’ education leaders do more? Why, when they had the chance to use federal covid funds to remedy the HVAC issue, did WCPSS leaders pass?
During the period, 2020-2025 WCPSS received $434.2 million in federal Covid relief funding. The district spent no money on HVAC improvements. Let me repeat, no covid money was spent on HVAC improvements or contracts. Instead, during the five year time period, WCPSS spent $330 million of $434.2 million in federal covid dollars – almost 76 percent of all federal funding received by the district — on employee salaries and benefits. That percentage is the highest of any school district in North Carolina
Now WCPSS wants the public to support a bond to fix HVAC because the district doesn’t have the money in their budget.
This has to stop.
