Board hears budget update: high-school work reported under original program total; soft costs tracked separately

District finance staff presented the board with a budget update focused on the Parkland High School renovation and surrounding program costs. Arthur, speaking to the owner's meeting materials, said the broader program presented previously included a wastewater-treatment upgrade and other land-development items and that the full package had been discussed as roughly $72 million.

For the high-school portion before the board, Arthur said ‘‘we have a budget that was presented for this project 51,733,000 current cost,’’ and that prime bids and change orders on that line were reported around $49,900,000. He emphasized that certain soft costs — permitting, township approvals and wastewater-plant expenses — do not appear on contractor pay-app slides because they sit outside the prime contracts and are tracked by district finance.

On contingencies and change orders, Arthur reviewed recent approvals (notably steel and drainage) and said the original program figure discussed earlier was about $64 million while the current reported figure on the slide was $62.9 million. He said the project remained under that program-level number. Concerning pay apps, staff noted a three-stage sign-off process: contractor submission, architect verification, and district sign-off before payments are processed through accounts payable.

Board members asked for clarification on percentage-complete versus time-elapsed measures; Arthur explained early schedule work (site setup, fencing and staging) skews elapsed-time percent early in a project and that the two percentages tend to converge later in construction.