Costs rising tied to QHS electrical upgrades

Published 8:29 am Tuesday, June 23, 2026

QUINCY — Quincy Public Schools faces additional costs tied to an electrical upgrade project at Quincy High School.

The Building/Grounds Committee heard Monday that expenses tied to Ameren Illinois will boost the project cost by $213,600.

The additional cost covers work by Ameren, slated for next summer, to bring electrical power from its substation at QHS to a nearby pole to provide access for Brown Electric, the project’s general contractor, to “get everything connected back up,” said Todd Moore with Architechnics, the project’s engineering firm. “We’re still helping them upgrade their substation, but there’s absolutely no way around it.”

The committee will ask the School Board this week for a Health Life Safety Amendment to cover the Ameren cost tied to the $2.9 million project replacing four transformers at QHS.

“Things are setting up quite well,” board member Damion Dodd told the committee. “Right now, we’re looking at three of four done yet this summer.”

Work began in May, without interfering with QHS classes or building safety, and plans call for setting new equipment for B Building-East and power transfer starting July 7. The installation work will require shutting down power to the system serving E Building, C Building (the gym) and part of B, then “they’ll bring the power back on gradually,” Moore said.

Installation work in H Building will start on July 20 and expects to wrap up by Aug. 3.

That portion of the project serves F Building, “which is where the IT (information technology) hub is. They have to keep that powered up and will provide temporary power for that,” Moore said.

Brown also hopes to replace the separate transformer this summer which serves A Building. “It just depends how everything else goes. It also can shift to next summer,” when work on B Building-West will take place, Moore said.

QPS Maintenance Director Ryan Clair said replacing the transformers and related equipment, as well as moving them from underground to above ground, is important for district operations.

“Everything is original from when the building was built in 1972, and what we’re trying to avoid is that equipment failing. We’ve had some scares over the last two to three years, where we’ve lost one phase,” Clair said. “If we do have a failure from now to next summer, with the preliminary work being done this summer, it will be a much easier conversation to have.”

QPS had hoped to shift away from primary metering and have Ameren own the new transformers but that would have added some $1.25 million to the project cost. Staying on primary metering, with QPS owning the transformers, dropped the additional cost to $213,600.

“It’s not that we under-budgeted this. We had no idea,” Clair said. “It went from over $1 million to where we’re at.”

Also Monday, committee members heard an update on work to replace the roof and heating/ventilation/air conditioning units at the Early Childhood and Family Center.

Roof work is underway and new rooftop HVAC units “are on site. They will start picking old ones off this week,” Clair said.

“We’re in good shape there,” Dodd said.