Serving the High Plains
Serving the High Plains
The San Jon Municipal Schools board of trustees last week approved two separate contracts with the same firm to be the district’s facilities master planner and project manager.
The board weeks ago issued a request for proposals for the two roles. Northstar NM of Albuquerque won both bids.
Northstar NM, with Ian Harmon as the project manager, won the project manager pact for the design phase bid of $29,499.73 and construction phase bid of $56,071.05. The total of $85,570.78 was nearly $18,000 lower than the other bidder, NV5.
Superintendent Janet Gladu said the project manager expense can be spread over multiple fiscal years.
The project manager will oversee a variety of district projects from an $800,000 bond issue that voters approved in November 2019, plus a Public School Facilities Authority grant of $1,897,500 the district also received that year.
With the facilities master plan bid, Northstar tied for the second-lowest bid of $27,920. Cooperative Strategies had the low bid of $24,950. The other bidders were Consolidated School Support Services and Greer Stafford/SJCF Architecture.
Gladu said Northstar’s bid was the “most attractive to us” and most recommended.
“The board accepted the lowest responsible bid,” Gladu stated in an email to the Quay County Sun. “The board believed this was the best option for us and the best use of tax dollars.”
Gladu added that Northstar’s facilities master plan bid added about $1,000 in cost to the district.
Gladu said the district’s facilities master plan needs updating every five years, and the last time it was done was December 2016.
In other business:
• Gladu informed the board the second round of the federal CARES Act legislation would result in $112,000 to $117,000 in aid to the district. She said those funds would be spent on hiring another custodian, cleaning supplies and other coronavirus-related expenses through 2023. Money from the first CARES Act bill must be spent first, however.
• The board, after a 30-minute executive session, approved the district’s participation in athletics for the remainder of the 2020-2021 school year. The closed session was permitted under state law because of the discussion of personally identifiable student information. New Mexico public schools faced a Feb. 15 deadline to opt in or opt out of athletics this school year.
• Gladu said because the annual trip for seniors was unlikely because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the district would award about $950 each for them from their class account.
• The board moved the district’s athletic account into the operational account. The athletic account, which totals about $6,700, had lain dormant for months because of the lack of sports during the pandemic. Staff members had feared the inactive account would be charged a fee by its bank.
• Gladu said the New Mexico Public Education Department probably soon would issue new COVID-19 guidance to the state’s 13 micro-districts. Micro-districts consist of fewer than 100 students.