Boards to meet again on school project
Posted on Wednesday, January 4, 2012 at 12:53 pm
MILFORD – The Caroline County Board of Supervisors and School Board will hold another joint meeting in an effort to finalize the project to renovate and expand Bowling Green Primary School. The two panels are scheduled to meet at 6 p.m. Thursday at Community Services Center building.
School Board chairman Mack Wright Jr. appeared before the supervisors at their regular Dec. 13 meeting and presented detailed information about the project, which would enable the consolidation of Bowling Green Elementary School. Wright also presented the board’s request that the supervisors fully fund the project at about $12.5 million, which would require them to approve an additional $3.5 million.
The information school officials delivered to the supervisors essentially amounts to a list of building project features and their costs that would allow the supervisors to pick and choose features they may want to trim in order to reduce the overall project cost.
One reason the supervisors took no action in December is they are seeking to clarify how wage rates from the federal Davis-Bacon Act will apply to the project. The law mandates what wage rates contractors must pay for building projects using federal funds.
The project will rely in part on $6 million in federal funds. The higher wage rates mandated under the Davis-Bacon Act will add about 9 percent to the cost of the project.
However, there was a difference among some officials at the board’s Dec. 13 meeting about how the law would apply to the project, whether only to the $6 million of federal funds or to the total cost of the project, which has yet to be finalized but could be in the range of $9-$12.5 million.
Randy Jones, senior vice president of Blacksburg-based OWPR, the School Board’s architectural and engineering consultant, said that, based on the experience of other localities, the Davis-Bacon wage rates would apply to the total cost of the project. Ben Emerson, the county’s legal counsel, was of the opinion the wage rates would only apply to the portion of the project involving federal funds. Deferring the decision presumably will enable the supervisors to obtain a definitive answer to the question.
The construction company that was the low bidder on the project had extended its bid to Dec. 20. Officials unsuccessfully attempted to contact A.D. Whittaker Construction Inc. in Ashland that evening to ask for an additional extension, but the School Board subsequently received – and accepted – an offer from Whittaker to extends its bid until Jan. 12.
As of late last week, the question about the application of the David-Bacon Act was still unresolved. Jones was in the process of contacting a federal official for clarification, and Emerson could not be reached.
The bids for the building project came in higher than expected and have created a tug-of-war between the boards. The construction budget was $8.5 million, but the low bid was $3.5 million higher.
One reason for the higher than anticipated bids was because of unexpectedly higher wage rates under the David-Bacon Act, which added an estimated $1-1.3 million to the project cost.
Another reason the project cost has risen is because the School Board revised the building plans to make it larger and add features. The supervisors had based their earlier funding decision on an 800-student school, they but school officials sought bids for a 900-student facility because of increased enrollment.
The School Board’s capital improvement plan met in October, and the full School Board met immediately afterward and approved cuts, reductions and other savings to reduce the cost of the project by $922,000. The board subsequently notified the supervisors of its cost-saving actions and requested an additional $2.5 million to pay for the project.
The two boards met in November, but the supervisors took no action on the request. Supervisors Wayne Acors, Bobby Popowicz, and Reggie Underwood were united in holding the School Board to the amount the supervisors originally appropriated – the $6 million in federal bond funds and another $3 million the supervisors agreed to borrow for a total of $9 million.
The two boards agreed to meet again, however, with the understanding that school officials would present detailed information about the project.
At a subsequent regular meeting, the School Board voted unanimously to go back to the supervisors and request full funding for the project. That decision was based on input from teachers and parents of the two schools.
If the supervisors hold the project to the original $9 million, it would require the purchase of 14 modular classrooms at a cost of $700,000, a figure that is included in the $9 million price tag.
