Last month an architect presented Tamaqua Area School District with a $77 million buffet of school renovations - including a turf field and new gymnasium.

But school board members would prefer a light salad - several necessary projects to improve security at all four of the district’s school buildings.

The district recently hired AEM Architects to look into the cost of moving administrators out of their current building. The firm presented a $77 million proposal to renovate every building in the district over a decade.

The district was only seriously considering a few items on the menu - like moving the district offices, or renovating the current ones.

But school board members said even those projects, with an estimated cost of $2.9 million to $5.8 million, cost far too much.

“It’s absolute insanity to entertain numbers like that, given our budgetary constraints,” board President Larry Wittig said during a recent committee meeting.

The current district administration building on East Broad Street needs renovation.

Offices are on multiple floors, and only one floor is compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act.

It costs the district more than $44,000 per year in utilities to operate the district office.

Kinder said he suggests that the district look to lease other, more efficient facilities somewhere in the school district to locate the district offices, rather than invest more money in the current building.

“If there’s nothing out there that’s useful for us, at least we have that information and we can go back and decide about upgrades to the existing district office, or revisit if we need to at some point, relocation,” Kinder said.

The engineering study also looked at remodeling the current district office building. That estimate was $2.9 million.

Trina Schellhammer said she doesn’t think that project reflects the current cost of construction in Tamaqua.

“I just want to make sure that we’re not closing that door,” she said.

Kinder said that the district will ask the consultant who prepared the feasibility study to prepare a study for the secure entrance projects only, which board members will look at before deciding how to move forward. Those projects would likely take place over multiple summers, with the high school and middle school first, followed by the two elementary schools.

The middle school and high school receive more visitors than the elementary schools, making them a higher priority, Kinder said.

During last week’s committee meeting board members discussed how they would possibly pay for the project. The district has $300,000 set aside for capital projects.

The district currently pays about $2 million in debt service per year.

In 2025 that number would decrease to about $1.1 million per year.