The DeKalb County Board of Education voted 4-0 Thursday night to award the base bid on the DeKalb West School addition to J. Cumby Construction of Cookeville, the lowest bidder on the project.
The base bid amount is $2,179,000.
But since the overall project costs of more than $4.8 million dollars is over available funding by approximately 25%, the board is exercising its option to make deducts and to re-bid a new roof on the existing West School building to bring down the costs. “We have checked and we can make deducts from the contract of the lowest bidder,” said Director of Schools Mark Willoughby. ” We are doing a pre-bid inspection next Tuesday, July 16 on the re-roof project because everything came in above what we had expected our estimates to be. We will bid that again the following Tuesday, July 23. Everybody is in agreement that we can make those deductions. If two Tuesdays from now we get a lower bid than what was in the contract, we will take that lowest bid. If we have a lower bid on the bid date then we will go with that bid. If the lowest bid is in the contract, we’ll go with that bid,” he said.
According to Director Willoughby, deducts can also be made on equipment for the kitchen/cafeteria renovation to save money. ” We have deducted on the cafeteria approximately $83,000. We are taking our old equipment and putting in the new kitchen. That is also equipment put in there such as milk coolers. We don’t have to purchase those. The company we purchase the milk from will supply the milk coolers. That’s a savings. We have also met with other kitchen suppliers this week. We have requested if we buy things from certain vendors, we think we can save at least $20,000 more,” said Willoughby.
The school board’s action on accepting bids is subject to approval of the county commission.
The board of education learned last month that the DeKalb West School building project is more expensive than the architect originally anticipated.
Jason Morris of Kaatz, Binkley, Jones & Morris Architects, Inc. of Mount Juliet, informed the school board that the total costs come to more than $4.8 million dollars. The county commission, last summer approved a $3.4 million note to cover this project and other school roofing work.
J. Cumby Construction of Cookeville had the overall lowest bid of the three bids submitted at $3,534,000.
The base bid was $2,179,000 to construct the new addition and $75,341 to purchase the roofing materials; $509,000 (alternate 1) to re-roof the existing building and $192,872 to purchase the roofing materials; and $846,000 (alternate 2) for the kitchen/cafeteria renovation and $12,866 to buy the roofing materials. The project also included a cost of $986,924 for energy efficient renovations by Johnson Controls.
The DeKalb County School System last year received approval from TEMA and FEMA for grant funds of more than $1.5 million to build eight tornado safe rooms at DeKalb West School. The spending plan calls for local funding to meet a 12.5% FEMA grant match for building the rooms. The proposed addition will be constructed in the front of the school, including the eight classrooms, restrooms, a new secure entrance, an office, clinic, conference room, and guidance and teacher work area. The county is paying for additions not covered by the grant.
The county commission, last summer approved funding for the DeKalb West School project in the form of the note to cover the local grant match for the safe rooms along with an $850,000 cafeteria and kitchen renovation at DeKalb West School as well as roofing projects at DeKalb Middle School, DeKalb West School, and Smithville Elementary School.
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