Barren County board approves over $17 million in BCHS renovation project

By MICHAEL CRIMMINS
Glasgow News 1

The Barren County Board of Education members met in the district’s central office in a special-called meeting to discuss and approve the base construction bid and the eight alternates in the Barren County High School renovation project.

During the roughly hour and a half meeting, Craig Thomas, president of RBS Design Group, along with Tommy Gumm, board chair of Alliance Corporation, presented the board members with detailed construction drawings of the various renovations the district is undertaking.

“The most significant portion of the meeting tonight is going to be regarding the base bid for Barren County High School Renovation Projects…also there are eight potential alternates for the board to take into consideration and see whether or not those will be added to the base bid,” Matthews said.

Thomas showed the members the “base bid” of the project, which includes renovations to the kitchen, cafeteria, agriculture hallway — which Matthews said needed to be expanded anyway based on the current school population and to be in compliance with KRS — the gymnasium, the art gallery, the slaughterhouse and the baseball press box as well as walkways and canopies. The total for the base bid was $15,290,728, according to the slides presented by Thomas.

According to Gumm, the baseball press box is set to be finished by February, much to the pleasure of Matthews, who said he was glad that construction would no impact the baseball season in March.

The kitchen, cafeteria and agriculture hallway would require a switchgear which, Gumm said, had quite a long wait time between ordering and receiving the part so not to “expect it anytime soon.” Gumm also said the next project they were likely to undertake was the art gallery in October.

The base bid was approved by the board members.

In addition to the base bid the board was also presented with eight alternates — essentially add-ons or extras as part of the board’s “wishlist.” They could chose to spend extra money if the funds allowed.

The alternates includ an expansion and renovation of the FMD — Functional Mental Disability — wing, a rear addition to the slaughterhouse, a repair of the HVAC and installation of a new roof on their College Street campus, “BCHS Football Visitor Bleacher,” resurfacing of the BCHS tennis courts, masonry work on a wall and a concrete patio at the art gallery, gymnasium glass guard rails and “BCHS Walkway IEC Light Fixtures.”

After Thomas and Gumm spoke about each alternates in turn, the members of the board discussed each deciding which ones were “need” and which were “wants.”

“We all need to realize the difference in wants and needs,” Chairperson Shelly Groce said. “I wish we could write a blank check, but it’s just not feasible.”

In the end, the five board members approved four alternates and rejected the others they deemed as “wants right now” saying they could do them down the road if needed, but did not want to at this time.

Of those approved were the the gym glass guardrails, the tennis court resurfacing, the College Street repairs and the FMD expansion. Combined with the cost of the base bid the total came to $17,357,611 based on the current bids Thomas showed to the board.

According to Joe Murley, finance director of the Barren County Schools, the “board intends to use a combination of restricted Building Fund cash and a bond sale from the board’s available restricted Building Funds and State Facilities Construction Commission funds, to fund the project.”

Also on the special-called meeting agenda was the approval of Park City Elementary fundraisers and approval of the district’s dairy bid. Both were approved unanimously without discussion.