School building projects over budget

By Emily Richmond (contact)

Tuesday, Feb. 8, 2005 | 11:11 a.m.

Clark County School District facilities officials will have to explain to the School Board Wednesday why the final price tags for two new construction projects may be as much as 65 percent over budget.

The winning bid to build the new Miley Achievement Center, the first district campus dedicated solely to serving students with emotional and behavioral disabilities, was for $13 million. That's 47 percent more than the $8.9 million originally budgeted by district staff. And a human resources intake center, proposed and approved by the School Board for $1.8 million, had a low bid of just under $3 million, 65 percent more than the budgeted cost.

"Obviously both of the bids were significantly higher than what we anticipated, " said Walt Rulffes, deputy superintendent of operations for the districts. "It is also a situation where the reasons for the high costs are largely beyond our control."

Those reasons, according to a memo to the School Board by Paul Gerner, the district's associate superintendent of facilities, include the ever-rising price of construction materials and a shortage of qualified labor. The high demand throughout Nevada and other western states has created a "bidders' climate," allowing contractors to be more selective in the projects they seek to undertake, Gerner said.

The district held a ceremonial groundbreaking late last month for the Miley Achievement Center, a 38,950-square-foot facility, located near the intersection of Pecos Road and Stewart Avenue in eastern Las Vegas. It is slated to open for the 2006-07 academic year.

District staff hopes to trim $250,000 from the final cost of the Miley project by working with the contractor, Roche Constructors, to come up with cost-saving design alternatives, Gerner said.

Construction industry representatives are warning the district to expect costs to continue climbing 15 percent over the course of the year and another 10 percent in 2006, Gerner said.

Wade Pope, regional vice president of Roche Constructors, said there's a "huge shortage" of sub-contractors at the moment throughout the Las Vegas Valley, increasing prospective labor costs for bidders. He noted that Roche and the other two top bids all came in at about $13 million.

"The district underestimated the job," Pope said. "That's demonstrated by how close all the general contractor's bids were."

Pope confirmed that Roche Constructors was working with the district to trim the bottom line for the Miley project.

"We're looking at ways to save money through the use of alternate materials without compromising the quality of the project," said Pope, whose company is currently building two new elementary schools set to open in August.

The Clark County School Board will meet Wednesday at 4:30 p.m. at the Greer Education Center at 2832 E. Flamingo Road for a facilities work session. Topics up for discussion include discussion of the potential impact on the district of a proposed property tax freeze, long-range projections for student enrollment and future school construction plans.