You know it’s a rainy day here at Triton, when the water starts pouring in the podcast booth through the ceilings, or Mr. Lathrop’s video production classes  take refuge in the library due to flooding in the outdoor building.

It has become very clear that  Triton’s building is standing on its last legs, with the broken tiles, leaking ceilings, difficulty balancing the heat and the cold and many more issues. At the same time, the maintenance staff in the school go above and beyond to the best of their ability addressing these issues using the best resources available while on a very tight budget. 

During an interview with Mr. John Skoniecki, Triton’s new facility and grounds manager for the district, he talked about the maintenance budget remaining the same for years, “As the building ages it’s gonna cost a lot more to maintain… with the budget staying flat it becomes a big challenge to get the things you need done, done within those restraints ” said Mr. Skoniecki. 

Triton Regional High School originally built in 1971. Throughout the years it has undergone several minor renovations, but with the building getting older and older it’s getting to a condition that is taking a lot more to keep up with. Whether its a more thorough renovation or a complete rebuild of the facility, something must be done but with a restrain on budget and pending approval, not much has happened. 

With every year that goes by, the market price increases for building materials and services. When budgeting, the new prices must be taken into consideration, and for a building like Triton that has  been standing for so many years, facing all sorts of weather and temperatures and aging equipment, those should also play a factor when it comes to finalizing a budget. But sadly that isn’t the case, “ I think that budget is always an issue,” said Mr. Skoniecki, “ if you think about that over the past few years, with inflation everything’s climbed 10-30% — everythings gone up, but with the budget staying flat it becomes a big challenge.” 

Equipment becomes more expensive to maintain the more it ages,  and similar to everything else around,  there is a a fixed  lifespan and replacement of equipment can be necessary, that should also play a major factor when budgeting, “we should be budgeting for future equipments,” said Mr. Skoniecki, “with every equipment we put in, we should be budgeting a certain amount to cover that piece of equipment at the end of its useful life.”

“The windows are really tough to fix,” said Mr. Skoniecki when talking about the effects of weather and the current structure of the school, with the courtyards, “for the heating, with this work system we’re putting in place, we’re hoping that teachers are going to start reporting those issues so we can tackle them as fast as possible.”