(Audubon) The Audubon School Board rejected the building project bids at their meeting Monday evening.
Superintendent Eric Trager explained that in the fall of 2019 they did an extensive feasibility study where they defined the scope of the project they wanted to do at the Middle School/High School building and then came up with a budgetary figure. That number was 7.5-million dollars with the understanding that they should be prepared to be above that number. So, they went to the public and asked for a bond issue for the 7.5-million and that bond issued passed in March. Then in late summer they had a pre-bid budget check done and that came in at 9-million dollars.
Trager said the reason this happened all boils down to the schedule. He said he made some phone calls to some contractors that he thought might bid, that did not bid, and they said their primary concern was the timeline that was attached to the project and they didn’t want to promise they could get the work done and not be able to complete it in time.
Trager said they now need to figure out how they’re going to finance the project that probably is going to be in the 10-million dollar range and they need to figure out how to do that without going back to the taxpayers and asking for additional property taxes. Trager said they need to look at how they can do this project in 15 months and attract more bidders to the table. He said they also need to look for efficiencies.
Trager said they are looking to rebid the project in early Fall of this year. He said they will probably have to delay the start of the project for a year.
