School Board In A Bind Over Costly NHS Expansion

By Eliza Hallabeck

Increases in the cost of materials for the Newtown High School expansion project were explained to the Board of Education at its meeting this past Tuesday night, as Ed Barrett, with the Morganti Group, explained how the bids for the project came in $3.9 million over budget.

The seats in the library at the Reed Intermediate School were nearly full when the High School Expansion Project was discussed.

Mr Barrett, the director for the preconstruction of the project for the Morganti Group, told the board the bids were received July 29, and now the base bid has increased due to rising costs for materials.

“Essentially where we are at this point is at a base bid increase of $3.9 million. And if we include the alternate bid of the athletic field, it would put us about $5 million over budget,” Mr Barrett said.

The budget for the project as approved by taxpayers was $38.8, with the athletic field as one of the possible alternates to the project. The alternates are not being included in the current bid amount. Other alternate improvements included the track, a lightning rod system, and cosmetic finishing.

Mr Barrett said the Morganti Group is in the process of evaluating the bids, but most of the scope reviews have been completed. He said more time will be needed to completely assess the actual cost of the project. A special meeting of the Public Building & Site Commission is scheduled for Tuesday, August 19, to act on any potential cost reductions, and the Morganti Group will go over the issue more during that meeting.

“There were three areas of the bids where the errors were quite apparent,” said Mr Barrett, because, he said, different contractors’ bids overlooked areas of the projects they were bidding on.

Other aspects of the bids that impacted the cost, according to Mr Barrett, were areas where they did not attract the bidders they wanted for the job.

“We felt we had a lot of bids come in,” said Mr Barrett. “We felt that we just didn’t get the ones we wanted.”

Demolition was one of those areas, he said, because that project will be contracted out to another company by the contractor that received the bid package for the project.

“We do have a couple contractors that used alternate materials,” Mr Barrett said, “and we will have to look into that.”

Mr Barrett said the Morganti Group has spoken with most of the contractors, and he said most of them feel the high school expansion project is a “good solid design.” He added that the contractors said skyrocketing prices over the last couple months changed the expected prices of the materials.

“Our goal right now is that next week there will be a special meeting of the Public Building and Site Committee,” said Mr Barrett. He said discussing the project further should happen after that meeting, because no further steps can be made until it has been discussed.

He said the decision to rebid a part of the project could be an option in the future, and the expected schedule for the project will be revamped, he said. Work was meant to start at NHS next week.

“On this particular job, taking out things, such as cosmetic items,” said Mr Barrett, “probably isn’t going to get the cost all the way down.”

There are 90 days allotted for the bids to remain the way they are, he said, and after that point they will need to be rebid.

“I think everyone in this room is disappointed,” said Board of Education Chairman Elaine McClure. “As I am sure Morganti is.”

Ms McClure then said that the situation with the high school expansion project is not a just the Board of Education’s problem, because, she said, it is the entire town’s problem.  

“The board alone can not do wonders,” said Ms McClure. “I think we need the town of Newtown to unite. I mean we have the kids, and certainly not the space.”

Bill Furrier, the chairman of the Public Building and Site Commission, wrote in a letter to Ron Bienkowski, the Board of Education business director, on August 12 that “we are in agreement that the bids, while significantly higher than our own estimates, reflect a national inflationary crisis not unlike the one we experienced while bidding the Hawley School HVAC project several years back.”

Mr Furrier went on to request that all parties involved to not place blame, because “the estimates that were in agreement were conducted using the latest available state and national professional inflation estimates and could not have predicted the massive spike in inflation that have been caused by numerous factors.”

“As a district we need to prepare for all these kids in the space with no extra teachers,” said Superintendent of Schools Janet Robinson. “People have to understand how big this issue is.”

Other projects that the Board of Education have been working on include a heating and ventilating system for Hawley Elementary School, and a sloped roof and flat roof replacement at Newtown Middle School. Increasing costs and the expense of the NHS expansion project, however, could put some of these items off for the future. The improvements or replacements are included in the Capital Improvement Plan that the board approved in November, and the board decided at Tuesday’s meeting to reevaluate the order in which these projects should be completed.

Dr Robinson said the “what ifs” attached to the NHS expansion project need to be talked about, because the alternative is finding the district in a mess if the worse case scenario happens. She said ideas have been passed around already, but a perfect fix for the possible situation has not yet been created.

“I will come to you with something,” said Dr Robinson, “but I am not sure what that will be yet.”