Board President, Jeremy Pickard.

Forced to admit they were fortunate to receive any bid at all, the Mid-Prairie Board of Education approved a bid for masonry work to the tune of $1,492,000 at a special meeting on Monday night.

With all bids now approved, the overall cost of construction for at East Elementary and the Middle School totals $12,706,023, which is $139,023 over estimate.

Maxson Masonry was the sole bidder for the masonry component of the project, which was put out to bid a second time on March 14.  When the package was originally opened for bidding in February, no bids were received.

School board members questioned whether there were any alternatives to accepting the bid, such as using steel siding on the exterior of the school additions rather than brick.  However, those ideas were short-lived, as project manager Tad Morrow from Carl A. Nelson and Abby Tornow from Shrive-Hattery indicated that cost to redesign this late in the process would be significant and likely not result in any savings.

When Board President Jeremy Pickard asked members to indicate favor or opposition to accepting the bid package, not all members initially responded.  

When pressed, Jed Seward agreed to accept the bid, acknowledging, “I don’t think we have any other option.”

Jake Snider also was hesitant.  “In all reality, heating and cooling is what killed us,” he said, noting that bids on that package were higher than anticipated as well.  He, too, then approved the masonry bid.

“I don’t like it, but yes,” Board Vice President Gabrielle Frederick concurred.

In other board action, members approved the appointment of Terracon as an independent third party to provide observation and material testing services for reconstruction of the high school track and construction at East Elementary and Middle schools.  Proposals were sought from three firms to meet this code requirement; Terracon’s came in the lowest at $46,727.  Terracon also did initial soil testing work earlier in the project.

Because of a conflict with scheduled track meets, parent teacher conferences were rescheduled for Tuesday, March 28 from 4-8 p.m. and Monday, April 3 from 4-8 p.m. with the board’s approval.  The conferences were originally scheduled for April 18 and 20.

The board’s next regular meeting will be held on March 27 at 7 p.m. in the Central Office Community Room.