Henrico County Public Schools is confronting an estimated $92 million backlog in deferred mechanical maintenance as recurring air-conditioning failures continue to disrupt schools across the Virginia district. The figure comes from a mechanical facilities assessment completed by a third party this year and represents deferred needs associated with the district’s building systems.

Superintendent Amy Cashwell disclosed the backlog in a Sept. 24 video message addressing the ongoing HVAC problems and offering an apology to families and staff with a promise to resolve the issues and make them a priority.

“As I’ve visited schools, talked with staff and families, I’ve seen the challenges and heard your concerns. Please know that I am sorry and that fixing these problems remain a priority.  When a classroom, hallway, or a larger area is larger in a school is warmer than it should be or when a repair takes longer than expected, it is frustrating. I share your urgency to make things right.”

The district is following up on Cashwell’s promise by adding five technicians, expanding its use of outside maintenance vendors, and moving toward more frequent preventive servicing. Cashwell told CBS 6 News Richmond that every school’s HVAC system will receive a comprehensive assessment and preventive service four times a year.

Assessment found systems operating beyond useful life

The new maintenance approach comes on the heels of a third-party assessment that found Henrico had been replacing some HVAC equipment only after it failed, leaving many systems operating beyond their expected useful lives. The district has developed a 10-year capital improvement plan to work through the deferred mechanical needs, according to CBS 6.

The scale of the district’s portfolio is compounding the challenge it’s facing to get the problems under control. Henrico’s operations chief, Greg Dunaway, explained to WWBT 12 that the school system maintains roughly 500 large HVAC systems and about 8,000 individual components across approximately 7 million square feet of facilities.

Problems have continued since classes resumed on Aug. 24. District officials said earlier this month that about 18 schools were experiencing air-conditioning problems on a typical day, and at least two schools had closed or dismissed students early because of high indoor temperatures, according to Henrico Citizen.

More than 600 work orders remained open

Public records obtained by local reporters in September provided an added perspective of the maintenance challenge Henrico is facing.

A review by WWBT 12 found 624 open HVAC and facilities work orders across the district and that more than half had been open for at least 30 days, while 41 had been outstanding for more than a year. Records showed 512 HVAC work orders were submitted between July 1 and Sept. 1, with crews closing 175 of them during that period.

District officials have cautioned that the work-order system doesn’t necessarily provide an accurate count of unresolved conditions. Dunaway said some older tickets may represent work that already has been completed but was never properly closed in the system. As a result, Henrico is developing a new internal dashboard and monitoring process as part of its facilities-management changes.

District expands preventive maintenance capacity

Henrico also began a $3.9 million preventive-maintenance contract on Sept. 1 that significantly expands the number of outside HVAC firms available to the school system, according to Henrico Citizen. Officials told the outlet that the arrangement increased the vendor pool from roughly four to six firms to about 12 to 14.

The change comes amid staffing shortages within the district’s own HVAC workforce. Cashwell said five additional technicians are being hired, while the district and county are also using contracted vendors to accelerate repairs.

Henrico County has become more directly involved as well. When county supervisors adopted the fiscal 2026-27 budget in April, officials said the county would assume responsibility for certain school-system costs and oversight of HVAC maintenance.

$20 million capital investment addresses only part of the need

The $92 million assessment puts into perspective the mechanical investments Henrico already had planned.

As American School & University reported in August, the district’s fiscal 2026-27 capital plan includes $20 million for school mechanical improvements, including aging heating and cooling systems and chillers. Crews spent the summer replacing equipment, completing repairs and preventive work, and installing temporary cooling equipment where permanent fixes were not finished before school opened.

[Read AS&U’s August coverage of Henrico’s $20 million HVAC investment]

The new assessment shows that the current capital allocation is part of a much larger, multiyear facilities challenge. Henrico must address immediate failures while simultaneously replacing equipment that has exceeded its useful life and building enough preventive-maintenance capacity to keep newer systems from falling into the same cycle.

Why it matters

Henrico illustrates the gap that can develop between capital replacement funding and day-to-day maintenance capacity. Committing millions of dollars to new chillers and HVAC equipment does not immediately eliminate failures when an institution still has aging systems operating across millions of square feet, hundreds of unresolved work orders, and limited technical staff.

The district’s response also aligns with findings uncovered in the Government Accountability Office’s recent national school facilities report that revealed districts with less capacity to perform preventive maintenance reported more chronic building problems and more disruptions to instruction, resulting in an estimated 2 million students losing 3.5 million days of learning in 2024-2025.

For Henrico, the shift from running equipment to failure toward quarterly assessments, expanded maintenance contracts, and a 10-year replacement plan represents an effort to address both sides of the problem—the $92 million accumulated backlog and the maintenance practices that allowed it to grow.