A state-mandated building condition survey completed in November gave overall building ratings of "satisfactory" to the three occupied structures making up the Cooperstown Central School district.

The CCS school board approved the 2005 Building Condition Survey conducted by engineering firm Bearsch Compeau Knudson Architects & Engineers Dec. 14 at a regular board meeting.

The survey - required every five years under the 1998 Rebuilding Schools to Uphold Education (RESCUE) statute - ranked the middle/high school, elementary school and bus garage as satisfactory. Possible overall building condition rankings included excellent, satisfactory, unsatisfactory, non-functioning and critical failure.

RESCUE was cited in material mailed out to district residents and during presentations by the school as a key reason for the timing of the project which was rejected by residents Dec. 6 by a vote of 1,365 against to 331 in favor of the project.

"The state's mandated RESCUE plan requires that districts address identified facility issues within designated timeframes," reads one response on a school-provided question and answer sheet.

RESCUE requires that schools perform annual inspections of their premises, hire engineering firms to conduct comprehensive building condition surveys every five years and requires schools to develop five-year capital plans identifying areas in need of work, but it does not require that any work be completed.

"RESCUE requires they develop the plan," said Carl T. Thurnau, director of facilities for the New York State Education Department. "There's no requirement to actually to do the work. That depends on voter authorization."

Thurnau said the main purpose of RESCUE is to provide schools with an opportunity to evaluate what's wrong and to establish long-term, non-binding plans for correcting those issues. He said timelines established in the five-year plan did not have to be acted on in the order they were established or acted on at all.

Two systems within the elementary school rated unsatisfactory and two systems within the middle/high school rated unsatisfactory as well, said Rosanne Groff, a partner of BCK.

In the elementary school, the communication system was rated unsatisfactory because of problems with the public address and clock/bell systems, Groff said.

"They're both functioning, but they're older types of systems that have well exceeded their useful life," she said. She said the same system rated unsatisfactory in the middle/high school as well.

The hot water heater systems in both the elementary and middle/high schools also rated unsatisfactory, Groff said. In the middle/high school, only the area serving the locker rooms was affected she said.

Groff said the estimated cost of replacing those four systems would be about $72,000 for the elementary school and $187,000 for the middle/high school.

CCS board president Anthony Scalici explained why many items were included in the $20 million capital project even though the buildings and most of the systems were rated satisfactory.

"Satisfactory is basically synonymous with functional," he said. There were many things we thought we could improve as "levels of efficiency were irrelevant to satisfactory rating. It's a very limited definition."

CCS superintendent Mary Jo McPhail expressed similar sentiments.

"The fact that buildings in the condition survey are being rated satisfactory doesn't mean there aren't some programmatic deficiencies or renovations that would improve health and safety levels," McPhail said.

Groff agreed that despite the satisfactory ratings, many systems that rated satisfactory in the state review have components that are unsatisfactory.

"Just not enough to rate the whole system unsatisfactory," she said. "There are many things that would certainly justify a project."