Oversight committee hears summer bond project updates; construction set to begin June 22

The Shared School Bond Oversight Committee for Sheridan SD 48J heard updates June 9 on summer bond projects, bid tabulations, budgets and grant prospects and was told construction for two summer projects is slated to begin June 22.

Chair opened the meeting, conducted roll call and moved to approve the minutes from a prior meeting, saying, “I make a motion to approve the bench from Monday, October 2020.” A second was recorded and the committee proceeded without a recorded roll-call vote.

Molly, a committee member who presented the packet materials, said the distributed documents include quote summaries and reduced-scale diagrams of roofs and parking but do not include full construction documents. She told the group that roofing bids and parking/lighting bids were competitive and, overall, bid pricing came in below budget. “We’re about to launch into construction. Both of those projects, we start June 22,” Molly said, noting that pre-construction meetings with contractors have already occurred.

Staff outlined procurement findings: three bidders for roof repairs and seven for parking, and that Hayward (a locally based firm) passed state responsiveness criteria and had been recommended to the school board for the parking work. The packet also included a roll-up budget that staff described as showing “a little over $12,100,000” available for projects, though line-item tracking is maintained separately for construction purposes.

Because several bids came in under budget, staff proposed using some of the savings to address exterior perimeter flooding at the FCS gym; they estimated that mitigation at the gym could cost about $75,000–$80,000. Staff also reported that an envelope consultant and a specialist (John Mansfield) are working to replace defective roof materials; material replacement costs were estimated at roughly $100,000–$150,000.

The committee discussed project sequencing. Staff said parts of the grandstand work would be phased differently and that a full parking-lot rebuild could be bid earlier (around spring break next year) to reduce summer congestion. Safety-focused changes in the parking plan include two new sidewalks at primary entries and a raised crosswalk to replace an irritating speed bump.

The package also includes exterior-lighting work: nine replacement poles, roughly 29 fixtures to be replaced with LED fixtures and four new lighting locations to improve crosswalk and entry illumination. Staff noted fixtures will include cutoff shields and timer/override options to limit light spill and enable a ‘‘dark campus’’ setting when desired.

On grants, staff said the district did not receive a $2.5 million rehabilitation grant it had hoped to leverage for the old gym, and described the competitive and subjective nature of the selection process for that program. Staff also reported ongoing conversations with the Energy Trust of Oregon about possible incentives for lighting but cautioned that program windows and timing can limit award opportunities.

The committee agreed to make schematic and design-development documents available as drafts and to provide links to the larger bid materials rather than distributing large files. Members set a substantive follow-up meeting for September (staff said they expect a 50% design set by Sept. 1 and will hold design meetings in September and October) to review more complete design materials.

The meeting closed with staff committing to update the bond website with meeting dates and to follow up on unanswered grant questions; the committee did not record any additional formal votes during the session.