NEW PARIS — National Trail Local School District staff is in the process of finishing an HVAC replacement project. The project was originally broken into two phases. Phase I revamped the electrical distribution systems of the 1968 building, which was the original distribution system.

Phase II of the project was supposed to bid out in March, but had to be re-bid due to a lack of bidders.

According to Director of Facilities Brian Smith, the project is behind schedule, but district officials knew it was going to go past the summer. However, this part of the project has also been broken into two different phases, as the original scope of work was too large.

“The HVAC project is coming along, but it is behind. We did not award the contract for that until May. We originally only got one bid on it, because everybody was busy. So we resubmitted it and got three bids on it,” Smith said. “We are really not that far off schedule. We knew it would be going into school. We would like it done as soon as possible, so normal operations can resume within the facilities.”

Superintendent Bob Fischer added, “The delay is due to material issues and the timing from when the project started. It has nothing to do with the people we are working with.”

“This is not replacing all the units, because we were trying to live within our budget, but we are replacing three of six units,” Smith said.

“This is Phase I of two phases we will eventually complete. Phase II will be later down the line, but this is the first phase. We were looking at replacing everything, but everything that is going on with the timeline and economically, we paired it down to what we knew we could get accomplished and still be effective for the building,” Fischer said.

The project has displaced kitchen staff and teachers out of their normal areas. Smith hopes to have them moved back into their areas soon, but also wants to be sure the project is completed successfully.