The USD 253 Board of Education rejected two offers for the Lowther buildings and told school district officials to repost the request for proposals for the buildings during its meeting Wednesday night.
The new offers for the buildings have to be made by 4 p.m. May 19, the board said. The board’s vote to reject two offers and start over was unanimous.
Also, the checks that the board received as earnest money will be given back to the two entities who placed bids on the buildings.
Before the meeting Wednesday, there were two bids on the table for the Lowther buildings. One, from Foutch Brothers LLC, of Weatherby Lake, Mo., was for $200,000 for both buildings.
Another bid was from a group called the Lowther Building Fund, a fund of the Emporia Community Foundation. The group’s offer of $200,000 was for one building and the group agreed to maintain the other building for two years.
Assistant Superintendent of Business Rob Scheib read a message from Foutch Brothers that said its offer was valid and if it was not accepted, there would be a legal battle.
The board then went into closed session to talk with its attorney, Tammy Somogye in Overland Park, for 15 minutes. The board cited attorney-client privilege as the reason for closing this portion of the meeting.
After the board reconvened in open session, Amy Scheller, board member, said that the decision to close the buildings was made for academic purposes and that the board did not intend to make tons of money.
The board also made and rescinded several motions before deciding to start the request for proposals process over.
The board also discussed the fact that Foutch Brothers intends to put millions of dollars worth of renovations into the buildings, which members of the board said would increases the tax dollars in Emporia.
John Mallon, who is part of the Lowther Building Fund, told the board if a developer comes in, there will no impact to the tax base for 10 years.
Lowther
Building Fund
Monte Miller with the Emporia Community Foundation answered questions from the board during the meeting. The group made a revision to their bid earlier Wednesday.
Miller said the Lowther Building Fund would agree to accept ownership of both buildings if the board was concerned about responsibility and liability of Lowther North during the 2-year period.
The Lowther Building Fund would also agree to provide essential maintenance of the North building during the 2-year period, including roof repairs, mowing, and insurance coverage.
It would also agree to a “claw back” provision in the event concerns arose over the maintenance of Lowther North, Miller said.
Miller said this proposal was a community-based offer to keep the buildings locally owned.
During the meeting the board also:
• Accepted a bid of $2,494,000 from Combes Construction LLC of Olathe to build an addition onto Emporia Middle School. The company also provided an alternate bid of $312,000, which made it the lowest bidder.
The alternate bid is for a flex room that will be used as extra space for physical education, art, and other uses for the additional 300 students in sixth grade. The addition is only classrooms for core academics, said Nancy Horst, community relations director.
The board of education received 10 bids for the project. The construction budget bid includes earthwork and paving, on-site utilities, landscaping and site equipment, concrete and steel, masonry, roofing and flashing, windows, painting, casework, HVAC, plumbing, fire projection, electrical and more.
Mike Crouch, board president, said he’s excited the bids came in as low as they did. The original estimate for the addition was $3 million.
Combes Construction previously worked with the school district and built an addition onto Village Elementary School.
• Accepted a donation of $2,250 donation from the Trusler Foundation to assist in funding for Emporia High School speech and debate team to attend a championship in Washington, D.C. later this month.
• Approved the 2011-12 Emporia High School student handbook.
• Accepted Title I school-wide plans for 2010-11.
• Heard a legislative update from Theresa Davidson, superintendent. Davidson said USD 253 will likely see a $75 per student cut this year, totaling about $500,000.
Davidson said because of the reductions made last year, including the early retirement incentive for teachers, the district will be able to absorb the cut.
“We believe we’ll be able to handle that reduction,” Davidson said.
Davidson also said she’s anticipating that the legislature will cut education twice as much next year.
Emporia_Spartan (anonymous) says...
kudos to the Board for starting the process over in order to get the best deal for the community.
May 12, 2011 at 1:02 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )