Maintenance and Operations

The APS Board of Education Conservation Policy EC-1 called for a 20% energy and water reduction over a 10-year period.

APS Maintenance & Operations manages 214 facilities, 1,117 connected iOT devices, 1,581 utility accounts across 17.4M square feet with 73,152 students.

We achieved our 20% reduction goal for electric and gas and we are slightly over goal in water. Despite ever increasing utility costs, our empirical savings over 10 years is $3,062,553, on average $306K per year.

In real time, we are notified immediately on our devices for water leaks, peak demand spikes, systems offline, systems running when unoccupied and sensors over threshold as defined by our benchmarks.

Sustainability is a focus for the APS Maintenance and Operations team both in execution and planning for the future

APS has increased our solar production to over 5 Megawatts of generation across 41 facilities. This has offset the energy equivalent of 310 gas powered passenger vehicles for 1 year. We are continuing to expand the district’s solar footprint with five additional locations and one pending final design.

In the 2025-26 school year, APS launched 30 electric school buses into the district’s transportation fleet. APS measures the savings and carbon offset performance of those buses closely.

We actively quantify Scope 1,2,3 emissions for the district live in our utility management software. This allows us to measure the district carbon reduction in parallel to our energy optimization efforts.

Interacting with air quality in the classroom helps APS M&O deliver the best learning environments.

From particulates to CO2 to pollutants and noise, we can interact with the learning environment to ensure students are comfortable and in a healthy learning environment.

We are actively notified on our devices of air quality excursions in the classroom so that we can address issues quickly.

Additionally, we have utilized air exchange analyses on new construction and retrofits with safe traces, and we incorporate UV air purifiers in classrooms.

M&O is leading by example in data driven operations & transparent reporting with 62,561 work orders costing $22.9M in the 2024-25 school year.

We monitor our work by board district for equity across and fairness to ensure all student facility repairs are addressed .

We compare data such as work order quantity by district and the resulting spending. As our work and data shows, the board districts with the newer facilities experience less issues and need for repairs, ex: BOD2. The aging facilities that have been significantly remodeled also show less work required, ex: BOD 5.

In 2022, we began replacing our irrigation controllers across our facilities. Since the completion of the controller replacements, contractor work order costs have been reduced by two thirds. Today, less than 10% of the total work order costs for the Irrigation Department are from work performed by contractors. In addition, total work order counts and costs for the Irrigation Department have been steadily decreasing in recent years.

Real time water leak detection enables APS to shift from reactive to proactive maintenance and problem-solving. Each time a water leak is detected, a notification is provided so the leak may be quickly addressed.

Irrigation controller upgrades plus real-time leak notifications enable faster resolution, fewer work orders and a saving of ~$100k annually.

We share our APS School Facilities Upgrades Dashboard plan with the community so that they can see specific projects underway that support the health and wellbeing of our students and staff.

Over $42 Million of ESSER and ARPA funding was deployed from 2023 to 2025 enabling the district to improve plumbing, HVAC and APS Health Clinics.

John Dufay said, “With the injection of ESSER funds, M&O has been able to do far more improvements to the student learning environment in the last 3 years than with the standard annual budget allocation.”

The majority of M&O workorder spending continues to be associated with HVAC. With the bond approval, we look forward to begin replacing the highly problematic and intensive maintenance of inefficient evaporative coolers.

M&O has a standard set of KPIs that are updated and monitored regularly. These indicators guide our work, as well as our planning.

• 2024-2025 work order spending per student per board district (does not include burden & overhead).
• 2024-2025 work order spending per square foot per board district (does not include burden & overhead).
• General maintenance, preventative maintenance and other important workorder volumes.
• Total in house and contractor work order costs.
• Average in house and contractor work order days to complete

Middle Schools 

• Sampling: APS collected 245 samples from 238 fixtures at 22 middle schools, New Futures High School and the early childhood program at Eldorado High School. The samples came from schools built before 1990. In 1986, federal laws were changed to limit the use of lead in pipes to better protect the water supply.  
• Results: Results from 97 percent of all fixtures screened showed levels below the EPA Action Level of 0.015 mg/L. Two schools, John Adams and McKinley, had a least one sample at or above 0.015 mg/L. 
• Corrective Action: Corrective action was taken, such as installing lead filters and replacing fixtures. Locations were retested and showed that levels had been reduced to below the EPA Action Level of 0.015 mg/L. One water fountain in a teacher's lounge at John Adams was eliminated due to its location and infrequent use.

Elementary Schools

• Sampling: APS collected 1,004 samples from 870 fixtures at 69 elementary schools.
• Results: Results from 96 percent of all fixtures screened showed levels below the EPA Action Level of 0.015 mg/L. Twenty-three (23) schools had a least one sample at or above 0.015 mg/L. These schools are Alameda, Alvarado, Apache, Arroyo Del Oso, Barcelona, Bellehaven, Dennis Chavez, East San Jose, Hawthorne, Hodgin, Inez, Lavaland, Lew Wallace, Longfellow, Lowell, Mary Ann Binford, Matheson Park, Mission Ave., Monte Vista, Painted Sky, Reginald Chavez, San Antonito, and Zia.
• Corrective Action: Corrective action was taken and, in most cases, the fixtures were re-tested to show the levels had been reduced to < 0.015 mg/L. In some cases, fixtures were eliminated or were designated for hand-washing only.