MEREDITH — The Inter-Lakes School District has found that thanks to staffing and retirement system changes, it has an $800,000 surplus on its hands.

Assistant Superintendent Trish Temperino presented the board with the news Tuesday night. In doing so, she recommended that the surplus be used to fix some long-overdue maintenance-related problems in the district.

“We’re coming up with a list for the school board, but we haven’t gotten as far as proposing projects to the school board yet,” Temperino said.

“When people think of capital improvements, they think of building projects, but we’re not thinking along those lines. We have some long overdue maintenance issues that we hope we can finally deal with now.”

Among the improvement ideas the district staff will likely propose will be a project to replace all student lockers at the Inter-Lakes High School building to create more room in the hallways, Temperino said. The building’s lockers have not been replaced since the high school was built in 1957, she said.

Another potential capital project would be accelerated funding to replace the carpet in all the district’s schools, she said.

The staff is still working out the costs of potential capital projects, Temperino said.

The surplus in the $20.5 million 2011-12 budget comes mostly from numerous staff changes and changes in the state retirement system, she said.

Of the $800,000, $676,000 is directly tied to changes in staff.

The district did not lay off any teachers or staff this year, but departures of teachers and staff and the hiring of their replacements brought a large savings, she said.

About $200,000 of the surplus comes from changes in the state retirement system rules. Other savings occurred after changes in the workers compensation system, she said.

Temperino said district officials want to have a list of projects to submit to the board at its next meeting Aug. 28.

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Dan Seufert may be reached at dseufert@newstote.com.