Image courtesy USD 489 website
By ALICIA FEYERHERM
Tiger Media Network
USD 489 Board of Education met for a special meeting on Monday to review change order requests for the Hays High School and O’Loughlin Elementary School bond projects.
The first was a request for $987,650 to replace the existing sewer line in O’Loughlin. Superintendent Ron Wilson noted there is $1.9 million that is currently unallocated in the bond budget that could cover these costs.
Nabholz Project Manager Dylan Weddle said they were asked to look into the issue in March or April, and they explored several options such as sleeving the pipe, coating the pipe or replacing the pipe in its current location before deciding a complete replacement was necessary.
Nabholz consulted DLR Group’s engineers to create a design and size the plumbing fixtures before gathering prices. Nabholz was still waiting on sub-contractor quotes last week, which is why this was not presented at last week’s regular meeting.
Nabholz is the construction company completing the work on all of USD 489’s bond projects. DLR Group completed the designs for the bond construction.
Overall, board members were concerned that the issue with the sewer lines was not identified earlier.
“We knew and the whole community knew that there were plumbing issues because that was one of the things we were told why we needed a bond,” board member Allen Park said. “So my question is, why are we just looking at it now?”
Board member Derek Yarmer echoed that sentiment.
“This should not be a shock to anybody and the fact that it’s a shock to you (Nabholz) is kind of concerning,” Yarmer said.
Nabholz does not handle the design of the buildings and Weddle noted this is outside of normal design procedure.
“Generally, they (DLR Group’s) would not scope existing sanitary sewer piping as part of their design review,” Weddle said.
Board president Curt Vajnar still felt the board deserved a heads up about the issue before presenting the change order.
“This really burns me,” Vajnar said. “How come we are just hearing about it 90 days down the road?”
Later in the meeting, Vajnar said he was personally made aware of this issue 75 days ago. Board member Ken Brooks asked why the other board members were not made aware.
“People are bringing it to me and in confidentiality, I am not going to talk about it,” Vajnar said.
Weddle assured the board they were not trying to hide anything.
“We were just asked to look into an issue and then price it,” Weddle said.
Yarmer asked why this was not bid out.
“It is extremely helpful and way more efficient to have a contractor already on board that can work with you and the engineer rather than having all those discussions in a vacuum without a contractor’s help and then sending it out,” Weddle said.
Weddle said doing so was quicker, more efficient and likely cheaper than bidding it out.
With the school year approaching, the line replacement will not take place until next summer. Some of the new work, such as carpeting in classrooms, has already been completed and may have to be torn up in some areas.
“That’s incompetence,” Yarmer said.
“There was a problem somewhere along the way, obviously, and I won’t disagree with that, but it’s got to be taken care of,” Ken Brooks said.
Instead of voting on the change orders together, Yarmer motioned to separate the O’Loughlin and Hays High orders.
The change order for Hays High School passed 7-0.
Yarmer then motioned to table the O’Loughlin order so that the project could be put out to bid. The motion failed.
The change order for O’Loughlin passed 4-2-1 with Park and Yarmer voting against and board member Jayme Goetz abstaining due to a conflict of interest.
During the last board meeting, the Hays High handbook failed to be approved. Hays High Principal Shawn Henderson presented a revised version of the handbook, which included more operational definitions as requested by Goetz. The revised handbook passed 6-1 with Park voting against. Park said specific language should be added regarding the new gender-neutral bathrooms.
The next Board of Education meeting will be at 6:30 p.m. on August 18 in the Rockwell Administration Building.