Christian County School System Superintendent Chris Bentzel says he remains committed to the idea of high school consolidation without raising anyone’s property tax rates.
Bids came in Tuesday from two contractors and they had a minimum cost of $199 million to construct the most basic version of the Hopkinsville Christian County Academy at Fort Campbell Boulevard and Lovers Lane.
Bentzel told those at a Christian County School Board retreat Thursday afternoon that while he’s disappointed, he isn’t ready to give up on the consolidation concept because he believes its best for the students.
He says it’s “not fiscally sound” to accept one of the current bids and he recommitted to not proposing any tax increases.
School Board Member Mike Walker expressed a belief that contractors weren’t given enough time to craft a bid on the enormous project and that could have reduced the number of bids. Board Chair Tom Bell hopes that if the board does re-bid the project, there will be more contractors interested.
Jack Faber
Jack Faber with Hafer Architects said they stand by the design, believing it’s efficient in nature, and added that last minute cost-increases in materials and higher than expected costs for site and mechanical work are partly to blame for the bids coming in significantly more than anticipated.
Those site work expenses were expected to be about $12 million and the bids had them at around $30 million.
Kelly Mrsic with Baird Financial Services specializes in school municipal bonds and while she agrees the bids are “unreasonable,” she also encouraged the board to not lose sight of their goals with the academy style of learning in the proposed building.
She and others noted that a new school is being constructed in Versailles and when bids for that facility were released two weeks ago, they were not nearly as out of line with what was expected as the local project. Faber warned to not make too much out of that perception yet, as he wants time to look over specs for that building as it could be comparing apples to oranges.
One piece of good news for the district is Mrsic says the September 1 deadline to break ground to use the $10 million state grant for the tech school aspect of the project has been released and there’s no impending deadline to spend the COVID relief funds.
Bentztel emphasized the consolidation to him is about more than a new building—he believes it would address issues such as staffing, post-graduation transitions and providing an equitable educational experience for all high school students in Christian County.
The Christian County School Board meets Thursday, July 21 for its regular meeting and could decide then whether to accept a bid or reject them both.
Listen to opening remarks from Bentzel and Faber below: