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Emergency Repairs Cost More

Added Jan 19, 2026 •

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Emergency repairs cost more than planned projects. When major systems in school buildings fail, the cost to fix them is often 30 to 50 percent higher than planned work done ahead of time. Here’s why: Repairs must happen right away to keep schools open Emergency work limits contractor choices Urgent jobs often cost more Repairs usually fix only one problem, not the whole system Materials must be ordered quickly instead of planned ahead Bond projects allow the district to replace aging systems before they break, not after. This helps avoid emergencies, lowers costs, and reduces disruptions for students. Planning ahead helps protect taxpayer dollars and supports strong schools and inspired students.

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anytime we can do plan maintenance repair it is so much better than having to resort to having to do an emergency repair what would normally run us 10 to 15,000 dollars ultimately cost us what took place was at the Missouri state capitol there was an elevator bank that was dedicated to the Senate and during the close of the session in May several years ago the uh elevator went out it caused a lot of problems so from the director of facilities perspective there was a lot of pressure to get this fixed so that is that that is really the situation you even school districts find themselves when you have to do emergency repair so how did we fix this and what problems did we Face to get it fixed within about 24 hours is what they were demanding first off these elevators were old and they had been in almost originally almost 100 years and had different parts and pieces they a whole Bank was going to be replaced with a capital Improvement several years later but it was very very difficult to a for our vendor we called him in immediately and said these elevators have to be fixed or this elevator has to be fixed and they said well the motor's gone out okay we'll replace the motor well we don't have that model of motor in stock we will have to look around across the country to see if we can find it okay look for it well they found 1 and it was uh moved from a small town or small area in part of Dallas out to the main airport and we ended up having to contract with a corporate Airline if you will to fly a private jet down to Dallas to pick up this motor and bring it back and then have it installed after hours so what you see is that when a merger repairs are necessary they disrupt operations you you may have to shut school down and you will demand and your patrons will demand that that build be fixed and then I wonder understand how did you get into that situation and because the work must be done right away it it and the contractors who can do the type of work you need are limited they're going to charge premium to have that work done and and you can't competitively find this because there sometimes it's so Source in materials and it's very very difficult very because time constraints equipment construe trains labor constraints and the other thing is we spent $50,000 on a motor and an elevator but I was getting ready to spend $300,000 in the next couple years to have it completely replaced so I spent a very very large fraction of the cost of that to fix 1 little problem which didn't fix the big problem the elevators ultimately had to be replaced and so anytime anytime you face an emergency repair that you have to do an immediate situation there's a lot of pressure going to be a lot more cost it's going to be a lot more difficult and it eats more and more of your limited budget

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Emergency Repairs Cost More

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