“Since the 12th, we are over budget again,” he said, referring to a seven-and-a-half-hour June 5 meeting to finalize design documents. “It was painstaking, but necessary. (The cost) came back up again. Now, we have to determine how to get it back on budget.”
The problem, he explained Tuesday, referred to what is called the Gross Maximum Price, the most the board could expect to pay for construction, barring additional change orders.
“When I heard it was $1.2 million over budget, I hit the ceiling. The co-owner, the state, hit the ceiling,” Davis said. “At first blush of the GMP versus budget, we found ourselves $1.2 million over. We had to go back and figure it out. They came to the table with 22 additional items to consider.”
He said they had determined $565,000 in cuts they could make but still need $658,000 more. At Monday’s board meeting he said it was described as “a good building without a lot of bling.”
“A lot of it is site-related, due to the amount of dirt we have to move—but we knew that—and the proximity to the current building,” Davis told the board.
He told the board he has asked the Ohio Facilities Commission for a “floor-to wall analysis” to determine if the design is causing the overage or if it is due to market conditions. He said he has asked the state to be at Wednesday’s work session to answer questions about their cost analysis.
Board Vice President Mike Crowder said he wants an explanation from them about the original assumptions used to calculate the square foot cost projections provided to the district.
“You can’t miss things that big,” Crowder said.
Davis speculated those estimates, which came in 2013, were based on 2011 and 2012 numbers and added, “You can’t push them off design (as the factor).”
He said they knew from the start that it is a “complicated site” due to the slope of the land beyond where the current building sits. That is the ideal location for a building which is why it was chosen in the first place, but they need to have school continue during construction so tearing it down and using that location is not an option.
He estimated $280,000 of the overage is due to the site and the state has made it clear they will not cover site costs, just actual construction, leaving that a responsibility of the district.
“We are at a point where we need to understand the site and understand the other pieces of the overage. The floor-to-wall analysis is a tool I hope will answer that question,” Davis said. “If that drives the cost, the board will have to ask itself if we are willing to pay that number.”
An option, of course, will be to go back to the architect and ask him to design a building that will come back under budget.
Board member Lois Vollmer raised the question of the start of school in 2016. The board has already approved a calendar starting after Labor Day to accommodate moving into the new building after its completion in August. Vollmer asked about what the delay in starting construction will do to that time frame.
“It has become somewhat of a moving target. Before, it was going to be in September. Now, it’s moving again,” Davis said, indicating the move-in will likely be sometime in October, but even that is not certain, because construction is not yet started. He added, “All these delays have been for the right reason.”
He said they need to make sure the project fits in the budget and delays have resulted from discovering problems with that.
Board President Mark Butterfield agreed and called the move-in date “irrelevant.”
“Whether the move-in date is August, September or October does not mean anything. The move-in date will be determined once we have it in budget. When we have a budget and a start, we will have a date,” Butterfield said. “Any project of this size has potential for creep in it. The danger is you get it compressed and tightened down so much there is a chance for creep.”
That “creep” refers to cost increases resulting from setting a firm move-in date and then struggling to meet that date with such things as overtime or double-shifts for construction crews.
Superintendent Kelly Spivey said they approved a 2016-17 school year calendar with a start date pushed back for the move-in date, but it can always be altered to reflect changes due to budget delays.
As a side note, Davis told the board of a meeting with the Kramer cafeteria manager and several others where they went through the kitchen plans for the new building line item by line item and found $80,000 in savings. Two big items included a meat slicer and a smaller mixer, both of which the manager said she does not need.
“(The cut) does not affect the quality of the kitchen,” he said.
Wednesday’s work session will begin at 6 p.m. in the high school building.
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