The cost of renovating the boys' locker room
In case you are unaware, there is a process and timetable for creating the Town's capital budget. The process is something like this...
1) Springtime - Superintendent drafts a capital budget proposal;
2) June 1 - BOE adopts a capital budget proposal;
3) July 15 - TM drafts a capital budget proposal; and
4) September 1 - Council adopts a capital budget (allowing adequate lead time for referenda in November elections).
Anyway, some of you may recall my August 17 post discussing the BOE's finance committee recommendation for school renovations:
By reading this, it sure sounds to me as though the locker rooms are supposed to cost $350,000.
But now I see the NHRs Luther Turmelle reporting:
School officials have estimated that renovating the existing boys’ locker room would cost $750,000, with an expansion of the space adding at least $250,000. Building a structure would allow for a larger boys’ locker room and would cost $500,000 to $600,000, officials have said.
Huh?
Also worth noting is the capital budget's description:
Fixing the Boy's Locker Room issue is the number one priority at this time.
And Luther's article continues:
But with Republicans having run on a fiscally conservative platform and holding a majority when the new school board is seated in January, it’s not clear whether building a new locker room will get enough support.
“Let’s wait and see what happens,” said Peter Massey, the board’s Finance Committee chairman and a Democrat. “There are a lot of needs at the high school and this is just one of them.”
As the Finance Committee Chair, I presume BOE Member Massey agreed that the Boy's Locker Room is 2009's number one school renovation project. But maybe I'm missing something?
Tim White
15 comments:
And don't forget the track. We've also heard that the $150,000 in the Capital Budget isn't enough to cover the resurfacing of that.
No wonder no one trusts the way money gets spent. We never get the straight story from the start. I guess the numbers get low balled and then when the project gets started, the change orders start rolling out.
Don't be surprised with the numbers that get thrown out for the turf project. I'm sure they'll be low balled too.
Taxpayers will be paying through the nose for the 13% teachers raise, so there is little room for any other new spending.
(1) Make the pool summer-only for now, then revisit a permanent structure if and when times improve.
(2) Strongly push Fritz and Esty to get the turf grant redirected to renovate the boys locker room. If they come up with excuses why they can't, they're ignoring the overwhelming will of the voters and not doing their job.
NOTICE TO REPS. FRITZ & ESTY:
We the voters of Cheshire do not want the turf. We want the $525,000 state grant redirected to other school priorities, like the boys’ locker room. That’s what we voted for on Tuesday.
When our new Council sends you the request to redirect the funds, you ignore it at your own peril. You can go the way of Altieri and Ecke.
You got the funds redirected for Wallingford; we want the funds redirected for us; and we don’t want any excuses.
Help me out here. Because of the recession, the word is that contractors are eager to get work and submitting lower bids than in 2007 or 2008. Plus, the recession has reduced the cost of building supplies.
So, then, why is the cost of fixing a locker room going up?
the following is from the NHR news report.
"School officials have estimated that renovating the existing boys’ locker room would cost $750,000, with an expansion of the space adding at least $250,000. Building a structure would allow for a larger boys’ locker room and would cost $500,000 to $600,000, officials have said."
Am I understanding this right? It would cost $1,000,000 to renovate and add additional space, but building a separate structure would only cost 5 to 600,000. $400,000 more to repair?
I think this requires the new town council to go on site and determine exactly what has to be repaired as they don't appear to know anything more than they want a separate building and they'll estimate it cheaper to get their way. And if you build a new building, will you just leave the old locker room the way it is, wouldn't there be some cost in converting it to some other use?
Looks like the purposely don't want to make this clear.
I read that differently.
I read it as $500,000 to renovate + $250,000 to expand for a total of $750,000. But I see your point.
Either way, I'm curious to know:
1)What's the estimated cost (without bells & whistles)?
2) What is the BOEs number one priority?
In construction, it is easier, quicker, and usually cheaper to build new than to repair/modify old. The existing locker room needs new plumbing, electrical, and structural upgrades. A contractor would need to "sound-out" every pipe, wire, piece of wood, and inspect every piece of steel to be sure of it's use, condition, and intigral need and that takes time and money. Remember, this is not adding a sun room to your house. This is a sub-terrain room with load bearing walls. There is alot of risk involved with this type of repair. Remodeling the existing room and finding a later problem will cost more money.
It may sometimes be easier, quicker, and usually cheaper to build new rather than to repair/modify old. Of course everyone needs to remember that as a whole the high school site is not virgin territory. Its been in use for over 50 years. Who knows what is or isn't buried on that site. It really wouldn't be too surprising to find previously buried utilities and other stuff along the way to the site of the new facility. It wouldn't be surprising either to find out that the town government, long ago, lost control of the site design particulars too. The town therefore might be unable to provide any meaningful current documentation with up to date locations for all buried utilities and services.
At least working inside of the existing building minimizes the potential for finding unanticipated surprises which could really make for a bad budget surprise at the worst possible point in the process.
Someone please explain to me how we just voted on a referendum for locker room upgrades of $350,000 and 4 days later we're learning it's closer to $1M. Florio chose to contact a NH Register reporter to disclose the latest costs as opposed to contacting town council first. Does anyone see a problem with this? I sure hope the new BOE members will reign him in soon.
The referendum question stated a cost of $350,000 and voters approved that amount. Now the BOE is saying this may cost $750,000 does it have to be put out to referendum again since the amount approved by voters was bogus?
Year two of the capital budget had the amount for the other half of the cost according to the very vocal turf proponant Mr. Daly at the turf fight meeting in October.
This is precisely why the Republicans were looking to reallocate the turf funds so the the project could be completed in one year...$350K wasn't going to get the job done. The larger question remains, how do you take care of a number one priorty in stages? That reduce crisis management to oh well maybe this is a big deal.
Year two of the capital budget had the amount for the other half of the cost according to the very vocal turf proponant Mr. Daly at the turf fight meeting in October.
Page 146 of the Capital Expenditure Plan shows 1/2 of the cost in Year 1 '08-'09 and the other half in the current Year 2 '09 - '10. It looks like $750K, in total, has been set aside for CHS upgrades but somehow, now in the last 5 days, the entire $750K is going to be eaten up by the boys locker room leaving nothing for the other infrastructure upgrades. Is anyone else tired of these shell games?
notice to all republicans can't wait to see you dig yourselves out of this hole with the turf and locker rooms what will you do not replace them? you moan and groan about spending money but watch all the cash you will spend on those crybabies in uniform you will get a consultant too and not bash and eyelash you lie
GOP HATER:
Don't worry about it, sit back on the sidelines and let the big boys and girls take care of business. The Reps are not worried about making the tough choices and they're happy to clean up the messes you and your cohorts left behind.
BTW, you may want to tell your democrat friends that their lawn signs are still out and about throughout Cheshire. Although, as much as I enjoy being reminded about the losers in this election it's starting to get a bit embarrassing but still very funny. They can use your help and compassion in their desperate time of failure.
Toodles!
Just curious, if they do build a new boy's locker room near the football complex, don't they still have to do something to the existing locker rooms?
They can't just leave them that way. What will they do there and what will that cost us?
Too many open ended questions.
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