White Pine School Project Hits Costly Bump in the Road
The Jefferson County School Board hit a road block in their plans to renovate and expand White Pine School, a project that initiated as a joint funding effort between the Jefferson County Commission and the School Board. Originally, the plan was to renovate the kitchen area of the school and put on additional classroom space with the cost of the project to come in at the $2 million dollar mark. Adjustments to the plans that were made in order to come in at budget found some of the needed classroom space moved to an alternate category. Recently, the School Board voted to allocate $800,000 from their fund balance to finish funding the project including all alternates and moving the total funding package to $2.8 million dollars. Months of delayed contract negotiations on the part of the architectural firm and a bolstered building market have played havoc with the working budget numbers and Tuesday the School Board was informed that the base bid, which was supposed to be under $2 million dollars, will instead be a little more than $2.6 million dollars and that number does not include an interior corridor from the old building to the new classroom space on the hill, nor does it include a canopy to cover the outdoor walkway. Adding the interior corridor back into the plan will cost an additional $130,000. Additionally, the $2.6 million dollar base cost will leave no contingency fund and will leave some White Pine students still in portables. The cost for the base bid, alternatives and interior corridor, plus a small contingency, comes with a price tag of a little more than $3.5 million dollars. With the $2.8 million that was allocated for the project, the School Board is facing a $755,000 funding deficit.
Tuesday evening School Board Members discussed the numbers and vetted options regarding the project. New School Board Member Fair inquired as to why the base cost was not enough to cover the initial scope of the project, which was kitchen and enough classrooms to move students out of portables. Tedious upper level design that was a part of package provided by the Cope architect firm was identified as a costly part of the renovation and addition. Board Member Potts indicated that other firms that were interviewed provided tentative plans that did not include the same costly layout. It was also noted that the $3.5 million dollar price tag was contingent on the Department of Education Maintenance Department providing the roofing for the project. Director of Maintenance and Business Affairs Phagan stated that it could be accomplished with the assistance of the prison work crew but it would negate installation warranty on the roof. Board Member Jarnigan stated that he was not interested in further delaying the project by switching to another architect firm and offered a motion to request that the County Commission contribute $375,000 and the School Board take $375,000 from their fund balance for a total of $750,000 to complete the White Pine project. He was 2nd by Board Member Cox but the Motion Failed in a tie vote with Cox, Vines and Jarnigan voting in favor.
Further debate followed the failed motion, with the consensus of the Board being that an exterior corridor was not acceptable but no real consensus on funding. Currently the Department of Education has $656,000 in their available fund balance, which is not enough to fund the $755,000 needed to complete the project should they decide to allocated the entire amount to the project. Board Member Jarnigan made a motion to instruct Director of Schools Edmonds to approach the County Commission and request further funding assistance with the project. The motion was 2nd by Cox and passed 4-2 with Bradley and Potts voting No.
In other business, the Board approved Budget Amendment #7 which had no fund balance impact.
