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Windsor Treasurer Cheryl McClanahan told the Windsor Town Council during its Feb. 11 meeting that electric bills at the Windsor Town Center are increasing, leading to discussion on ways to lower utility costs at the facility.

During her regular monthly report, McClanahan noted that she had just paid $4,000 worth of utility bills for the Town Center.

“Our electric bills are getting higher,” she said. “We talked about this, but I want to let you know, I will have to probably, toward the end of February/beginning of March, transfer some of the investments over to help cover the rest of the year’s expenses for it, because our utility bills seem to be a little bit still high.”

She noted in conclusion, “I just want to let you know that our expenses for the Town Center have been going up (more) than what we originally budgeted.”

Councilman David Adams later stated that the outlier line item appeared to be Town Center Repairs & Maintenance.

In McClanahan’s printed report, current year actual expenditures in that line item total $11,175.68, a significant increase compared to last year’s actual total of $5,309.55. The current year budgeted amount for this line item is $10,000.

“The repairs and maintenance is because we’ve had repairs in the meeting room because there was some moisture in there, so we had to repair that,” McClanahan said. “And I think there’s also been repairs to, I believe, the heating.”

Windsor Town Manager William Saunders said, “Quarterly maintenance on the HVAC is about $1,500 a quarter, but then the damage from the water intrusion, the moisture issue was what the large amount was.”

Adams said he saw that there was about $17,000 of unrealized expenditures in the Town Center’s Utilities line item, and he asked if the town was going to do a balance transfer from that line.

“No, we’re going to need that Utilities, because, as I said, I just got a $4,000 utility bill,” McClanahan said. “So (the Town Center has) got spring camp coming up, so that’s going to use some more utilities. I’ve just got to get somebody over there to start controlling those lights a little bit better in the gym, because I know there’s times in the evenings I come by, and the lights are still on. I’ve made people aware of it. They’re trying to be more aware of it too, but we’ve just got to watch.”

Later in the Feb. 11 meeting, Councilman Walter Bernacki referenced McClanahan’s comment about increasing Town Center utility bills, and he said, “Are there any control measures that we can look at or get a price on having installed that would assist to reduce that in the future?” 

He suggested a lighting system that shuts all the lights off at the Town Center when it closes, and he also mentioned dialing back the thermostat.

“(Ms. McClanahan) shared the report with me from the utility or the electric side that it’s starting to get to be a trend, and how do we keep that under control so that we can stay in budget on that?” he said.

Saunders said, “It’s very technical, but there is a component that was not installed in the system originally that works to dehumidify the system actively. So what we’ve had to do to a degree is through standard settings, counter that, but that means heating the space or cooling the space more and not just being able to let it get much more efficient during the hours that people weren’t there. That’s what was causing the moisture.

“You can’t really retrofit that element back, but there is something that you can do that helps,” he continued. “We’re getting a quote on that.

“As far as the lights and whatnot, we’re going to meet with county staff and other staffers that are closing up to reiterate that these lights, they aren’t automatic,” he added. “And partly it’s because some of them are automatic that could lend people to not turn it off, the few manual ones, expecting it to be automatic.”

He expressed doubts that the big gymnasium lights could be made to be automatic.

Councilman Edward “Gibbie” Dowdy asked if the gym lights were LEDs, and Bernacki said, “I think they’re mercury-vapor, and they have big transformers to light them because they’re so bright.”

But then following up on Dowdy’s comment, Bernacki said, “Now is that something maybe we could investigate? Another possibility is would it be worth the money to transition to LED to reduce that cost as well? Just some thoughts.”

“That’s something else we can look into,” Saunders said.

Bernacki added, “And the other thing there too is, to help offset the costs, maybe there’s some energy efficiency grants, through the (Environmental Protection Agency) or anything like that, that would be available to help us with that.”