BUUSD facilities committee will add explicit contract procedures after stormwater-project overage

Barre Unified Union School District #97's Facilities Committee agreed to draft clearer procedures to make explicit how the district handles contract change orders and budget overages after members said a recent stormwater project produced "sticker shock" for some community members.

"Number 1, what I heard was that a community member felt that the board needed to be more involved if we were gonna go over budget," said the committee member who opened the agenda item, urging the committee to consider formal steps for notification and attorney review. Jamie, who led the facilities presentation, told the committee that "any contract that the board signs ... has been vetted either by our attorney" and that attorneys review contractor contracts before any board signature.

But the committee concluded the existing practice — attorneys review contracts — should be put into the written procedures so the public and board clearly understand the process. "We should have an... very specific step that we take so the public knows that we're just not dealing with that internally," the staff member said, recommending the administration ask its attorney whether contract language can include protections for unforeseen costs and to report to the board "as early as possible when there is a change order or we anticipate an overage."

Committee members described how overages commonly appear as formal change orders and are often driven by unanticipated site conditions. Jamie explained the recent stormwater project was largely overseen by a state-hired contractor and that the district's share was roughly 10 percent of overall project costs in that instance: "Greenprint Partners was a contractor that's hired by the state ... they were paying 90% of the project; the school district was responsible for 10%."

The committee asked staff to draft additive language that (1) states attorneys will vet contracts for facilities projects, (2) asks attorneys to identify potential contractual protections against unexposed costs, and (3) specifies when the administration must notify the board if a project is likely to exceed estimates by a set threshold. The staff member said the recommended procedural changes will be returned for committee review and that the committee should anticipate seeing the language at its Dec. 8 meeting.

No formal policy change was made at the meeting; the committee directed staff to prepare a written revision to the procedures and to consult the district attorney as part of that work.

Next steps: staff will draft the procedure wording with business-office input and attorney review and present it to the committee on Dec. 8 for further action.