Bids for Liberty-Curtin Elementary School come in way over budget

BALD EAGLE TOWNSHIP, PA – Keystone Central School District officials and the project architect had sobering news for the public Thursday night: bids for the planned new Liberty-Curtin Elementary School in Blanchard came in several million dollars over project estimates.

Much of the district school board work session was devoted to the Liberty-Curtin project. Bids were opened on Tuesday and the base bids totaled $19.1 million, as opposed to a pre-bid estimate of $17 million. And that $19.1 million would not cover project plumbing which came in at more than double the $1.529 million estimate from the architectural firm of Crabtree, Rohrbaugh & Associates.

Jeff Straub, the project architect, blamed the unanticipated high bids on inflation. The numbers he presented Thursday represented some paring back of project costs, including elimination of a stage and alteration to parking paving. With those alternates, the total bid package, minus plumbing, would be $18,780,000. Straub said efforts are being made to get a better price for plumbing as there was only one bidder for that phase of the project.

Otherwise, the school board will be asked to vote on the low bidders for general contracting, electrical work and heating/air conditioning at their voting session next week.

Superintendent Jacquelyn Martin said a rebidding will be done for plumbing work with the expectation that contract could be awarded in December; she said she does not think that delay will impede the planned opening of a new school in August of 2025.

Multiple meeting participants talked of ways of finding additional savings in project “soft costs,” including the elimination of project certification at a savings of $250,000. Even with the cutbacks, board member/facilities committee chairman Jeff Johnston noted the building won’t be a “Taj Mahal” but a “good serviceable building, pretty nice for that community, which they need.” Superintendent Martin said the project has been on the district “radar” for five years and indicated it would not make sense to change course at this point, noting that in anticipation of a new school, the district has put no major improvements in the current school over the last five years, the planning process delayed by COVID intervention.

Approval of the several recommended bids will be on the board agenda at its Nov. 9 voting session. There was no indication Thursday night the board would not proceed with the process.

Board member Butch Knauff, along with the superintendent, made a plea for district residents to contact their elected state representatives to push Harrisburg to release $4.5 million in state funding due to the district, part of the state budget for the current fiscal year but caught in a dispute between legislative Republicans and Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro.

Knauff said the “Level Up” money was put in the budget to level up funding inequities between the state’s richest and poorest districts. He urged residents to contact state Representatives Stephanie Borowicz and Paul Takac and state Sen. Cris Dush and “demand they pass the code bills required to release the ‘Level Up’ funding.”

The superintendent said if the funding is not received, it will put a “huge strain” on the district, impacting staffing and programming. She suggested a board resolution to legislators to ask for action on the funding.