At the Clarion-Goldfield-Dows Board of Education meeting Monday night, the school board faced some difficult decisions. The group had hoped to approve bids for the baseball/softball complex and the middle school gym at this meeting. Bids were opened on July 8. Both projects came in substantially over the engineers’ estimates.
Four bids were received for the baseball/softball complex, with three able to be reviewed. The low bid was from Dean Snyder Construction for $5,071,000. The estimated cost for the project was about $2.6 million. For the gym, six bids were received and 5 opened. Sande Construction was the low bid at $5,572,791. The project had been estimated at $4 million.
ISG engineers discussed the bids with the board. They noted that while there has been talk of projects running on the high side, they “haven’t seen numbers this astronomically high” until these bids, particularly the ball complex. They added that the high prices were mostly related to material costs and it was not just one thing.
On the ball complex, the area that came in particularly high on the bid was the concession, press box, and restroom building at $650 per square foot. The engineers noted that if you took this building out of the project, it would cut out about $1.9 million. They ultimately recommended that the best option would be to rebid the project without the concession/restroom building and go ahead with the fields. They also noted that they did not think bid prices would change for the gym project anytime soon.
The board had a lengthy discussion about their options. Superintendent Joe Nelson said he wanted to proceed with the projects but “we have to be accountable to our communities.” He recommended moving forward on rebidding the ball park complex without the concession building and noted they can use temporary restrooms. “It’s not ideal, but we can still get this project done,” said Nelson. “We’re doing this for our communities and the students.”
Board member Beth Jackson asked the rest of the board if they were comfortable spending over $8 million dollars on these projects. Megan Ring asked if the building projects are the right thing to do at this point. Nelson added that if they go forward on both projects, the district will have to “tighten its belt” and be conservative for the next five years on construction projects.
Ultimately, the board decided to accept the $5.5 million bid for the gym and rebid the ball complex project with the concession building removed. If things go to schedule, new bids could be decided upon at the August meeting.
In his superintendent’s report, Nelson noted that the district does not plan to provide language to parents recommending masking for this next school year, despite other districts in the county leaning towards it. He discussed the idea of sports sharing, particularly sharing wrestling with Belmond-Klemme. He noted that CGD is open to the possibility and looks forward to hearing what parents and students in the BK district had to say at a meeting this week.
In policy changes, the board updated the complimentary activity ticket policy. Senior citizens will now have to pay for passes, but at a 50% discounted rate.
In staff changes, three paraeducators were recommended: Laurie Mabe – HS Para and Shannon Williams and Barbara Garstecki – Elem Paras. Several contract changes were also approved for TLC positions and mentors. Jon Dahlke resigned from his position as MS Girls Basketball Coach.
