Bids for new school $5M over budget
Above is what the new high school cafeteria will look like. The bids for the new school are more than $5 million over what was budgeted. | Drawing courtesy of Hartselle Board of Education
Bids for the new Hartselle High School are about $5 million more than expected, but school officials believe that they can get the cost down without having to re-bid the project.
On Thursday, the Hartselle Board of Education opened the bids for construction of the new school and received only three complete bids on the project. Of those, the lowest bid was $39.35 million from Ra-lin Associates in Carrolton, Ga.
The other two bids were $39.49 million from Baggett Construction in Decatur and $40.11 million from Wyatt Construction in Birmingham.
School Superintendent Mike Reed said he anticipated getting more bids on the project, but he still feels that they will be able to get the project into the $34 million it had budgeted for construction.
After talking with the project manager, Brian Moore of Martin and Cobey Construction in Athens, Reed believes they will be able to give the school board a workable solution in time for the next regular meeting on April 25.
“I don’t believe we will have to re-bid the project,” Reed said.
Part of the reason Reed and Moore feel that way is that the school system received several partial bids, which could give the school board ways to negotiate with the lowest bidder.
“We’re looking to see if we have bids that would encompass the entire construction of the school,” Reed said. “If we do and the total is less than the overall bids we received, we could use this to see if the construction company would come down on its price.”
Other cost-cutting options that school officials are considering may be cutting certain features of the school. Reed said several of the bids contained alternate bids if they decide to eliminate parts of the project.
“For example, one of the alternate bids is if we decided not to build the new regulation track facility,” Reed said. “It’s something that we don’t have now, so if we decide to cut it, it’s something we’re not accustomed to having. However, we have not made any decision about cutting the track or any other part of the project.”
Reed also added that the school system could see a rebate of sales taxes charged for this project. Sales taxes will not be abated on construction of the school.
“We could see about ($1.5 million) come back to the school system because of the sales taxes charged for the construction,” Reed said. “That would still leave us about $3.5 million over what we had budgeted.”
