COVINGTON, Ky. — The Covington Independent Public Schools Board of Education approved a $7.1 million ventilation project for Holmes High School at their meeting last week.
The project will see improvements to the ventilation systems throughout the entire building. The new system will draw fresh air into the building and circulate it throughout. It also includes attendant electrical infrastructure, masonry, framing, lighting and other construction. Finally, the construction will replace the building’s boilers.
The board had sent the project out for bid at the end of September, following a tax increase aimed at increasing the district’s ability to build and improve its facilities. The increase was framed by confusion and invective, and eventually, one board member, Hannah Edelen, even publicly expressed remorse for casting her vote in favor of the increase.
The ventilation project approved in last week’s meeting is unrelated to the potential air conditioning improvements on Holmes campus that occupied the board and public’s discussions during the tax hearings.
Statements from district staff at the board meeting in September indicate that the ventilation project’s original cost estimates clocked in at about $4.2 million, but the lowest project bid from Schrudde & Zimmerman Construction put the project’s cost at about $7.1 million, largely due to costs associated with the boilers. The district had planned to use COVID-19 emergency funds to finance the project, but the new cost estimates forced the district to reappropriate funds from other parts of the budget, including the district’s general fund.
Although the board eventually voted unanimously to approve the project, some members weren’t pleased. Board member Stephen Gastright even went so far as to say that he wouldn’t vote to approve any more construction projects in the future unless the district could provide updated cost estimates on those projects.
“After tonight, I’m not going to vote for another [project] until we have updated cost estimates on all of them,” Gastright said. “This is not any way to run a railroad, as they say, right? Because we’re not going to have enough money.”
Gastright estimated the cost of other projects in the works to be about $20 million. He expressed dismay that the board was, in a way, compelled to accept the bid as the federal government would retract the COVID-19 money dedicated to funding the project if the board didn’t dedicate it to a project by the end of the year.
He was also frustrated that the increase in project costs would entail an increase in the contractor’s fee, which is 10% of the total cost of the construction project, whatever that figure ends up being.
Board President Tom Haggard, on the other hand, expressed concern that the project would eat up much of the district budget’s building cash, $1.13 million, for fiscal year 2024.
“That concerns me,” Haggard said, asking how the district would mitigate building damage in the event of an emergency without the cash. For example, “a pipe bursts at Latonia Elementary or some other capital need happens, like, what are we going to do?” he asked.
Annette Burtschy, the district’s director of finance, said the district could reallocate the cash because it didn’t need it for bond payments.
“If you had an emergency project or something like that, we would have to look in other funds to be able to do that,” Burtschy said.
“There’s an inherent risk here,” Haggard said. “It’s a calculated one that you all have made. This is probably the best path forward, [but] there’s a risk there.”
Burtschy said the district would get more building cash in July at the start of the next fiscal year. What’s more, she said, the district had money allocated in its contingency funds to deal with unexpected expenses.
“We’ve never had to really dip into contingency a lot of times for building projects, but it’s there that you could if you wanted to,” Burtschy said.
Eventually, Haggard called for a motion to approve the project. Gastright made the motion, and the board cast unanimous votes in favor. District staff expects the construction to be completed by the end of next summer.
The next meeting of the Covington Independent Public Schools Board of Education will take place on Thursday, Dec. 14, at 6 p.m. at Latonia Elementary School.
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