Bids come in $3M too high; classroom wing eliminated
By alison granito
Staff Writer
A sign posted outside Middletown High School North assured passing motorists that the long-awaited renovations to the school would finally start April 1. That sign has been taken down.
The Board of Education voted at a special meeting last week to reject the latest round of bids on the project after they came in approximately $3 million over the estimated cost.
According to Schools Superintendent Jack DeTalvo, many of the bids on the project came in at around $21 million, which is the entire amount set aside for the project.
DeTalvo said accepting bids at that amount would not allow the district to set aside enough contingency money to cover unexpected complications over the course of the renovations.
In order to decrease the next round of bids and trim money from the project, the superintendent said, the seven-classroom addition slated for the project would be eliminated. DeTalvo said cutting the addition would save the district approximately $3 million.
The addition would have housed five specialty rooms, including two art rooms and three specialized computer labs.
According to DeTalvo, the project will be redesigned without the addition, with the five specialty rooms moved inside the building to the area of the auxiliary gym.
"The addition does not provide the instructional value; the rooms do," DeTalvo said.
"This is one of those unfortunate circumstances," DeTalvo said at the meeting. "We’ll have to make adjustments, get back out to bid and get it done as quickly as possible."
Some parents and community members at the meeting were upset with the changes to the project.
"That April 1 sign really was an April Fools’ joke," Susan Garofalo told DeTalvo. "It [the school] is not being done the way you said it would."
Garofalo said her son was in sixth grade when the referendum passed in 1996.
"He’s going to be a senior next year before a shovel is even in the ground," she said.
Board member N. Britt Raynor addressed the concerns of those in the crowd, saying the board was doing the best it could under difficult circumstances.
"This is the solution they have come up with, and we hate it," Raynor said of the cuts to the project. "The unfortunate thing is that it is the best thing we can do."
"This thing can never get done until we put the shovel in the ground," he added.
DeTalvo said the district expects to look at another round of bids in late spring. The target date for construction to start is now June 1.
DeTalvo also said that despite the cuts to the project, the program at the high school would be protected in order to make sure that North is able to offer its students the same opportunities offered to students across town at High School South.
The project at North is the only project yet to begin under the district’s $78.5 million construction referendum, passed in 1996. Last December, voters approved an additional $10.5 million in funds, which school officials said were necessary to properly complete the work called for under the 1996 referendum.
Of the $10.5 million, $3.3 million was set aside to finish the three middle schools and South, while $6.2 million was earmarked for the project at North. The remaining $1 million will foot the bill for additional construction management costs that will be incurred due to the extended length of the projects.
At the time, school officials said that they were confident that the additional money would allow them to put finishing touches on the projects already under way at South, Bayshore Middle School, Thorne Middle School and Thompson Middle School, as well as finish all the work planned for North.