Cornerstone board discusses maintenance and renewal plans

WEYBURN — Projected maintenance and renewal plans (PMR) get special attention within the South East Cornerstone Public School Division (SECPSD) for good reason.

Some facilities are dealing with age factors and there are continual needs for upgrades in most buildings.

Bringing the information on the recent PMR plans to the school board’s open business meeting in Weyburn on May 28 was Jim Swyryda, supervisor of facilities and transportation for the division.

He told the board members that an amended plan was in effect for Cornerstone for the 2025-26 school year, and it indicated a surplus of $731,000 to accommodate future anticipated demands and emergency situations.

Those needs were also outlined as Swyryda revealed amended plans for the next two school years, ending in 2028. That included increased accessibility demands in the coming years. 

This year the bulk of the spending has once again been devoted to roof replacements or repairs on individual facilities, and over $634,000 was spent for overall repairs and upgrade projects, he said.

Division-wide roof repairs have gobbled up a further $270,000 of the division’s allocated $3.5 million budget for such programs. This has been boosted by $761,000 that is expected in June of this year.

The supervisor reported that specific roof sections in Stoughton amounted to $475,000, and another in Radville that included two sectors came in at $675,000.

Working with no anticipated funding increases for the next two school years, Swyryda projected a modest $29,000 deficit in 2026-27 and a modest surplus of about $4,000 for the following school year. He also noted that planned projects sometimes get shifted or delayed due to a variety of reasons including weather-related incidents or some other failures or events.

In the upcoming years, the plans call for fewer roof replacements and more attention being paid to necessary upgrades and renovations, plus refreshments in facilities.

“So things could change according to priorities and specific projects,” he said, but having the plans mapped out in advance certainly assists them with ongoing projects.

It was noted during the presentation that one of the ongoing projects is, of course, the construction of a new school building in Carlyle and sometime in the anticipated near future, a major reconstruction of the Estevan Comprehensive School that may allow for a second application for the building of a large elementary school to embrace all elementary grades in the city in concert with the Holy Family Roman Catholic Separate School Division.