Washington Business Journal
Friday, February 13, 2009
In Focus: Architecture
http://washington.bizjournals.com/washington/stories/2009/02/16/focus1.html?b=1234760400^1777502&page=1
In November, Arlington County Public Schools got voters’ approval for an $83 million bond issue to rebuild Yorktown High School. Combined with the $24 million approved in 2006 for Yorktown’s needs, the school had $107 million for an ambitious project to replace virtually every building and add big-ticket items like technology-enabled classrooms and a new aquatics center.
The school system expected to spend $90 million to $93 million on construction costs, said schools Superintendent Robert Smith. The only question was when to send the project out for bids.
School system officials went to bid at the end of the year. And were they ever glad they did.
“When we opened the bids on Jan. 14, it was more like $65 million, instead of $94 million,” Smith said.
Even the highest bid was just $75.3 million. “I’d say ‘elated’ is an understatement,” Smith said.
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There seems to be a consistent theme to the recent blogs that somehow the school board is going off to build the new grade school without considering costs, and not providing for a competitive bidding process.
ReplyDeleteThis is nonsense.
There aren't bids yet because the construction documents are not complete yet. One can not bid what one can not specify. Those documents should be complete sometime this spring.
In the meantime, the board is working with knowledgeable contracting folks to ensure the district is value engineering the building so that when a competitive bidding process is entertained, they have a very good idea what the outcome will be, and there will not be any negative surprises.
This school board has done a masterful job with our annual operating budget and five year plan. Notice how the Foundation target came down this year, even with all the carnage around us? That is no accident.
They did a masterful job in structuring and timing the new bonds so that we got a lower interest rate than had been expected, saving the district (and all of us taxpayers) money in the long run.
So, why would anyone think that they aren't going to be every bit as careful and responsible with the capital expenses for the new grade school?
Trying to project poor financial stewardship on this group of people just doesn't pass the sniff test. They have a track record.