Dave Brewer of FORMA Construction points out the various entry ways to be installed at Fords Prairie Monday afternoon in Centralia.
Fords Prairie Elementary is seen under construction Monday afternoon in Centralia.
Dave Brewer of FORMA Construction stands in the gym area of Fords Prairie Elementary Monday afternoon in Centralia.
Dave Brewer of FORMA Construction works on an interior wall at Fords Prairie Monday afternoon in Centralia.
In addition to the Centralia School Board adopting its 2018-19 school-year budget on Wednesday evening, the project managers for ongoing elementary and high school construction projects provided updates, showing increased costs due to tariffs and additional foundation work at Jefferson-Lincoln.
The Centralia School District earmarked more than $104 million for capital projects in the 2018-19 school-year budget, in its Capital Projects Fund.
While last year’s funds for capital projects mostly covered design work for the elementary schools and high school, this year’s budget covers the major construction.
The beginning fund balance in the capital projects fund, which is money for infrastructure such as a new school, is $65,756,155. In addition, there is $426,000 in local impact fees, more than $38.4 million in state assistance and a $1 million transfer from the general fund, according to the budget presentation.
Karen Curtin, who is the executive director of fiscal services and presented the entire school-year budget, did not make herself available for comment.
This is the second year of interest payments on the $74 million bond that voters approved in 2017, which come from the district’s debt service fund. The bond will fund the construction of the two new elementary schools to replace Fords Prairie and Jefferson Lincoln and a full, like-new remodel of the high school.
Both project managers for construction of the new schools presented to the school board on Wednesday as well.
Anjie Collins is the project manager for the high school remodel project, while David McBride is the project manager for both elementary school projects. Collins and McBride are both with OAC Services.
Buyout, which is the time between the preconstruction and construction of a project, came in $2.2 million over the original budget for the elementary schools.
The Fords Prairie estimate came in $289,062 over the original estimate, while the Jefferson Lincoln estimate came in $1,617,713 over the original estimate. McBride said that the individual figures are slightly lower than the $2.2 million because OAC Services has already been looking at ways to lower the cost.
“After we got bids in, we’ve been going through a value engineering process,” McBride said. “It’s something we did early on in design, but we are doing it again, trying to find cost savings.”
McBride noted during the meeting that the windows are more expensive than originally anticipated, due to the steel and aluminium tariffs.
“Every single bid we had that involved metal skyrotted because of the tariffs,” McBride said on Friday. “The windows came in more than double what they were estimated by our contractor during design. Even in the few months finishing design and bidding that package out, it came back extremely high.”
According to the fee proposal and preconstruction form that FORMA Construction submitted to the district in 2017, the estimated construction of each elementary school was less than $20 million.
Centralia School District originally estimated that the GC/CM contract, which is the construction manager/general contractor contract, would be $19,497,650 for Fords Prairie and $19,481,510 for Jefferson Lincoln.
The Centralia School District moved $1.1 million from its General Fund of the 2018-19 school-year budget, to the Jefferson Lincoln budget.
“That was placed in the Contingency Fund for Jefferson Lincoln because after the bond, we did the soil testing,” McBride said. “At Jefferson Lincoln, we found the soils were pretty bad … In the event of a really big earthquake, the ground could literally sink there … we had to put the building on piles and the piles cost basically around $1 million all said and done.”
McBride said the state requires a 5 percent contingency fund for the process. The money won’t necessarily be used, but is there “just in case.”
Meanwhile, most of the high school construction is set to be completed in time for the 2019 school year, except for the kitchen. Collins said during the presentation that it’s slated to be completed in October or November 2019.
Collins did not respond to request for comment over a two-day period. Ed Petersen, public relations and communications coordinator for the district, said he believes the rest of the project is on schedule.
“Everything else is right on time, as far as I know,” he said on Friday.
Collins said during the presentation that she is working with Centralia School District Food Services on an interim plan to feed students and staff. However, she did not go into specifics about what that plan is.
Petersen said on Friday that it most likely involves the middle school.
“It’s the only other facility we could move food production to,” he said.
The portable campus that will house students during construction is now fully functional and students are still set to attend the new high school in fall 2019.
