It was a busy summer for the Fountain Hills Unified School District, with maintenance and upgrade projects popping up on every campus.

Last fall, local voters approved an $8 million bond package, with proceeds earmarked for various district-wide projects.

The first half of those bonds was sold earlier this year and, according to Superintendent Tom Lawrence, the $4 million has been put to good use while students were on vacation.

Along with the most visible bond project -- the artificial turf on the high school football field -- other undertakings included replacing a skylight at McDowell Mountain, playground upgrades on two campuses, HVAC units on two campuses, fire lane and parking lot upgrades, and more.

“The HVAC upgrades took place on two campuses, McDowell Mountain and the district office,” Lawrence explained.

The project included 132 ceiling units and two new chillers on the McDowell Mountain campus, replacing the original 28-year-old cooling towers.

McDowell Mountain also received a security upgrade with the installation of a new wall separating the pre-school rooms from the front entrance, directing all traffic through the front office.

At Four Peaks/Middle School, extra room has been made for outdoor lunch tables, as well as the installation of new shade structures, including a large one over the playground.

“At the high school campus, we also redid the grass area behind the football field,” Lawrence continued.

“The main field fell behind a little due to rain, but we hope to see that whole project completed sometime by early next week.”

Lawrence explained that all of these projects were funded through this year’s bond sales, about half of which provided the new HVAC upgrades.

Lawrence said that planning for these projects took about a year and a half. The superintendent’s financial advisory committee created a needs assessment to help guide the board’s decisions, with the individual projects eventually being approved once the bond package had been passed by voters.

“We had some experts on site looking at our facilities and we began to hone it down into the more critical things we needed to do for our aging facilities,” Lawrence said.

“It’s a matter of maintaining the investment our community has in these schools. Just like your home, you have to put money into it in order to maintain it.”

McDowell Mountain, for instance, is nearly 30 years old. The high school campus isn’t far behind and the district’s newest campus, Four Peaks/McDowell Mountain, is already 12 years old.

“Bonds pay for those big items, things that you can’t use maintenance and operations or capital dollars to do,” Lawrence continued.

“We want to maintain the investment, provide a safe and secure place for students and staff, and we’re always looking to improve our efficiency.”

Lawrence said that, with the HVAC upgrades, there’s a guaranteed payback over time, with the potential to “make money” following that payoff.

“The same goes for the field,” he said.

“We needed to redo the field one way or another, so the question became, ‘Do we go with regular or artificial turf?’ Our estimates are pretty solid now, so we’re looking to recoup the cost of the difference between those two options in two years.

“Then it becomes a relief off of our maintenance and operations budget, from the money we’ll save on upkeep.”

Lawrence said it’s been a busy summer for the local district but a successful one.

“We’re glad to see things winding down for these projects,” he said.

“We’ve had a good group of contractors in here and they’ve done a good job of hitting their target dates without impacting our instructional areas.

“We’ve stayed within budget and accomplished the things that we needed to accomplish.”