Sean C. Morgan
The Sweet Home School Board Monday approved the final spending packages on the Sweet Home Junior High remodel and construction project as well as the remodels and seismic upgrades at Foster and Holley elementary schools.
During its regular meeting Monday evening, June 10, board members approved $6.5 million for the second phase of the Junior High project. The board had already approved $5 million in April, a total of $11.5 million in construction costs.
Business Manager Kevin Strong said the district will spend about $600,000 in architecture fees for a project total of approximately $12.1 million.
The Junior High project will make safety and security improvements, upgrade building infrastructure and mechanical systems, add a cafeteria and multipurpose area, build a second gym and add slope to the school’s flat roof for water drainage.
The board also approved $3.3 million in expenditures for seismic upgrades and remodeling at Foster and Holley schools, with a new cafeteria space and redesigned offices and entrances. All three schools will have secure card-lock entrances.
To help ensure enough funding to complete the projects, the board approved a 2019-20 budget, following a public hearing, which will allow a 3-percent ending fund balance in the district’s General Fund instead of the 5 percent normally required. The decision would allow the district to draw down its Long-Term Maintenance Fund to $300,000 instead of the $500,000 proposed earlier in the 2019-20 budget process.
Strong told the board that district staff intend to accomplish the upcoming construction work with existing resources, but the decision by the School Board to allow the district to reduce its ending fund balance and draw the additional $200,000 from Long-Term Maintenance would provide room for a contingency.
The decision reduces the need to implement a spending freeze and defer spending into the following fiscal year, when costs may be higher due to Oregon’s new gross receipts tax, Strong said.
He told the board that the district should be able to replenish the ending fund balance and Long-Term Maintenance by 2021.
The scope and cost of the Junior High project has increased substantially since the district began discussing the junior high remodel as part of a $4 million bond measure approved in May 2016. The bond levy was matched by a $4 million grant from the State of Oregon. District officials estimated the Junior High project at about $7 million at the time of the bond.
Where initial plans at the Junior High called for an auxiliary gym, for example, the district looked at a new full-sized gym. To offset the expansion of the project and rising construction costs, the board agreed to use funding from the Long-Term Maintenance Fund to make up any differences.
In addition to the expanding scope of the project, said Facilities Director Josh Darwood, the cost of construction has increased to record levels while subcontractors have become harder to find.
Projects across the state have been coming in over budget, Darwood said. Beaverton had a $186 million high school go over budget by $75 million, for example.
“The subcontractors are just not that hungry,” said Ryan McAlister, Gerding vice president. “The labor force isn’t out there.”
It’s happening in construction in general, he said, with costs coming as much as 30 percent higher than Gerding would have expected.
The district, gLAs Architects and Gerding Builders have “worked extremely hard to create a path forward in this crazy unprecedented market,” said Darwood, a former contractor himself. For example, an overhang on the new cafeteria at the junior high has been cut back.
“We’re still trying anywhere we can to get that number better.”
Approximately $1 million in bond funding was slated for remodeling elementary schools with secure entrances and smaller building improvements across the district. The district has received $151,000 in interest on the bond money.
The Long-Term Maintenance Fund will provide $4 million toward the total funding, with an additional $200,000 available if needed, leaving it at $300,000 to $500,000 by the end of next year.
The district received $3 million in grants from the state to fund the seismic upgrades and will use some of the Long-Term Maintenance Fund money and bond money to complete the remodeling portions of the Holley and Foster projects.
In the past two years, the district also completed seismic upgrades to the high school auditorium and at Hawthorne Elementary. The district also remodeled the entrance and office at Hawthorne.
That all adds up to approximately $18 million in projects, Strong told The New Era.
“The last time we spent $18 million for facility improvements, it was initially about $2 per $1,000 for 28 years.”
This time, he said, the district is doing it without increasing the tax rate.
Darwood said it is much more cost-effective to complete work when the buildings are opened up.
“The long-term maintenance funds allow us to leverage the bond and grant funds for additional facility improvements.”
The board established the Long-Term Maintenance Fund in 2004, Strong said. Over the past five years, long-term maintenance funds have been used to help pay for the turf field and resurfacing the track in Husky Stadium, to pay the majority of the cost of a new sound and lighting system in the high school auditorium and the gym’s new sound system, to leverage donate funds to pay for school playground improvements and to pay for roof repairs.
“School Board members over the past 15 years deserve a tremendous amount of credit for establishing and growing the Long-Term Maintenance Fund,” said Supt. Tom Yahraes. “The district no longer has to rely entirely on bonds to make capital improvements and major repairs.
The fund also allows the district to leverage other funding sources to amplify the amount of work that can be accomplished on projects.”
Present at the meeting and voting to approve the guaranteed maximum costs for the three projects and the 2019-20 budget were Mike Reynolds, Chairman Jason Redick, Debra Brown and Jenny Daniels. Angela Clegg attended by phone. Absent were Toni Petersen, Jim Gourley, Jason Van Eck and Chanz Keeney.
In other business, the board:
n Approved the resignation of Terry Augustadt, assistant principal at SHJH; Ryan Graville, business teacher at Sweet Home High School; and Logan Geissler, fifth- and sixth-grade teacher at Oak Heights.
n Approved the hiring of Nathan Bofto, to teach PE at SHJH; Nate Tyler, assistant principal and athletic director at SHHS; and Lisa Collins, extended school year special education and resource room teacher for July 30 to Aug. 22.
n Approved a new school calendar to accommodate the new seven-period schedule at SHHS.
Holidays and vacations remain unchanged. Grading days have been reduced from three to two, with dates accommodating semester midpoints. The number of instructional days increases by one to 174. The first semester has 83 days. The second has 89 days, to accomodate bad weather.