Initial Response—

High School Bids Likely Under Budget

By John Voket

A project manager overseeing the Newtown High School expansion project told The Bee Thursday morning that he is cautiously optimistic bids opened the day before appeared to be trending under budget.

“At present we are under budget, but we still won’t know for sure for a couple of weeks,” said Ed Barrett, who represents The Morganti Group, the construction management firm for the project.

For just over an hour on the afternoon of March 25, a table full of representatives from the town and The Morganti Group tore into envelopes containing bid offers for more than a dozen select bid packages. While the specific outcomes are a week or more away from delivery, town Finance Director Robert Tait said Mr Barrett appeared cautiously optimistic about the results.

“I was sitting with him, and he was scribbling different notes between the bid announcements,” Mr Tait said. “After we finished he said he was quite comfortable the bids were going to be under, including the alternates.”

Mr Tait is referring to “under” the $38.8 million already approved by voters, which would underwrite the construction phase of a high school expansion and renovation project.

In a follow-up call from The Bee, Mr Barrett said he and other company representatives were “pleased with the results.”

Arthur Lindley, who was presenting the bids to Mr Tait during this week’s bid opening activity, said the total amount of offers exceeded any he has ever seen for a project of this size, and that he, too, was confident that the sheer volume boded well for competitive offers.

Mr Barrett said that economic issues that drove bidding up by millions over the $38.8 million budget last spring likely drove bidding below budget just a few months later.

Mr Lindley told a packed room full of contractors and bid representatives at the school district offices that he would have a spreadsheet available detailing the bidding outcomes, not including alternates, by March 27.

If the final bids and alternates can all be qualified as at or under budget, construction on site can likely commence in May.