The Mineola Board of Education announced Thursday that initial projections for a $3.8 million capital reserve project to repair the district’s schools were $1.2 million too low after bids were received.
“It is obvious that we cannot do all the work from the bids we received,” Superintendent of Schools Michael Nagler said during a Board of Education meeting.
The board agreed to accept a $1,049,500 bid for heating, ventilation and air conditioning, but re-open the bidding on masonry and windows.
Trustees also accepted a $367,000 bid on electrical work at the Hampton Street School, which was not originally part of the $3.8 plan.
“We plan to get as much of the work done as we can with the remaining 2.4 million,” Nagler said.
He said that any unfinished work using the capital reserve would be put into the upcoming 2015-16 budget.
The projections, provided by H2M architects, broke the project into four portions: masonry, windows, heating, ventilation and air conditioning and electric with separate projections and bids for each.
The estimate on masonry for the district, as projected by H2M, was $200,000 while the lowest bid received was $921,000. Windows had a projection of $2.6 million and the lowest bid was nearly 2.9 million.
A referendum for the projects was passed in November of 2013, Nagler said.
He said last year he expected the windows and doors of the buildings to be replaced before the end of 2014 and that repairing the masonry on all seven school buildings – which he has said is in “horrible” condition – would be the first part of the project.
Mineola school board President Artie Barnett said that the manufacturers the architect recommended in the plans for the district limited what bidders could provide and that after the failed bids the plans were reworked to include different manufacturers.
“I think our architects could have done a better job,” Barnett said.
Nagler said it was in the best interest of the district to pass the reasonable bids they were presented with and to get moving on the project.
“I’m very disappointed its taking this long to get this project off the ground,” he said.
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