By CRISTINA JANNEY
Hays Post
The Hays USD 489 school board voted to table a motion to accept the maximum guaranteed price for renovations and additions to O'Loughlin Elementary School at its meeting on Monday.
Nabholz Construction has bid the project, and the board was set to approve the maximum price of $14.49 million at Monday's meeting. The bids came in about $172,000 under budget.
The O'Loughlin project is the last major renovation project to be paid for through a $143 million bond issue.
The designs for the O'Loughlin project were approved at a prior meeting.
Nabholz said 31 percent of the bids came from local contractors, which they said was very good for a project like this.
The current Hays High School is set to be remodeled into a middle school, and the current middle school is set to be remodeled into an elementary school.
Board member Derek Yarmer said he did not want to approve the O'Loughlin project until he had the prices for the Hays Middle and Hays High remodeling projects.
"We're putting money in here without knowing what is needed for the rest of the bond. There's been no talk or deciding what needs to be done at the other buildings, so we don't run out of money for those," he said.
The district has budgeted $3.6 million for the renovation of the current Hays High School building into a middle school. The budget has an additional $4.5 million in unallocated funds. Superintendent Ron Wilson estimated that work at the current middle school will cost less than $2 million.
As part of the bond projects, a new high school is being built, and Roosevelt Elementary School is being expanded and remodeled. The high school is on budget, and Roosevelt is on budget with the exception of a previously approved change order.
Wilson said both the current Hays High School and Hays Middle School buildings will only need light renovations-paint, carpet and moving a wall or two.
Both schools are more than large enough to accommodate the number of students who will be using those schools, he said.
The greatest expense will be the addition of bathrooms for the kindergarten rooms in the current middle school, he said.
The Nabholz representatives said they could not have the exact costs of the renovations until the district's architects drew the plans and the contracts were bid.
Wilson said, "We could actually tomorrow move kids across the street from Wilson to Felten and hold school there other than except for a couple of classrooms for kindergarten classrooms."
Yarmer said, based on the cost of some of the other projects, he thought the district would be short on funds to cover the rest of the renovations.
Wilson said the district is not building new structures or adding space at the new middle or elementary school sites.
Yarmer questioned the plumbing at the current Hays High School.
"I think we should have an idea of what all we should be doing before we approve this," he said.
Board member Ruth Ruder asked if the sale of Lincoln Elementary School and Rockwell Administration Center could be used to pay for bond projects.
Wilson said yes.
Board member Jayme Goetz said she would at least like to know the cost of adding the bathrooms at the new elementary school before voting on the O'Loughlin project.
Board members Yarmer, Curt Vajnar, Ruder, Goetz and Allen Park voted to table the O'Loughlin project until the next school board meeting so more information could be presented on the cost of the remaining bond work.
Board members Ken Brooks and Meagan Zampieri-Lillpopp voted against the motion to table. They both expressed a desire to approve the project's cost Monday night.