(Audubon) The planning phase for Audubon’s $7.5 million bond issue is going smoothly and the school board took a step this week to make sure the construction this summer can get started as early as possible.
Audubon’s final day of school this year will be May 18th regardless of winter weather. The School Board on Monday night approved using snow days as virtual learning days. “We have the ability this year to do remote learning on snow days so I asked the board to approve that for the coming year. Kids are going to have a little work to do on snow days, but with our big renovation project coming up this summer we felt it was important to have as much control as possible over the end date for the school year.”
Superintendent Eric Trager says their planning process is moving right along for the main portion of their upgrades to the high school building. They were able to gain some added flexibility on their bids thanks to refinancing their 2013 sales tax bond to capture historically low interest rates. “We are going to have the flexibility to go ahead and borrow more money against our sales tax revenue. That is zero impact to property tax payers. That is a revenue stream we already have in place. That gives us flexibility on bid day for our project if our bids come in over budget.”
This should ensure not having to cut any corners on upgrades they intend to make. “We don’t want to have a bid day and be over budget and have to go back and try to redraw the whole project so that we can afford to do the things we want to do. We want it done completely and we want it done right. There’s a need to be flexible on bid day so we can accomplish all those things.”
The board has set a public hearing of November 4th to approve the final plans and specifications for the summer 2021 renovation project. “We are really getting down to to the short rows on the planning and the preparation part of the project and we are ready to get those bids back in and think about getting the actual work done.”
Bids will be open November 10th with a due date of December 8th.
