Passing a bond issue is a lot of work and takes dedicated residents to a school district to distribute information, campaign and the ability to answer questions.

There is both a sigh of relief, a celebration and then anxiety for what is to come when a school receives the minimum 60% support needed to enact the bond issue. The project has only begun as the next steps are as important in completing the project.

It usually takes at least six months to a year to even break ground once a bond issue has been passed. In preparation for a bond issue, a district contracts with an architect to put together estimates for the work that needs to be done.

Remember that these estimates are sometimes 12-18 months prior to actually starting work. Unknowns include what the economic conditions will be at the time of bidding, what the availability of contractors may be at the time of bidding and unknown variables such as tariffs or other political events that may affect the bid.

While the architects will build in contingency fees into their estimates, it is a variable number until the bids have been received. I have had both situations occur in my past, bids that come in below estimates and bids that come in above estimates.

When bids come in below, that is not an issue. When bids come in above, then changes in the plans and materials must take place and that is a big headache. 

It is sleepless nights for a superintendent as the bid letting process begins and until the bids are opened. It is quite natural to anticipate the worst case scenarios.

For Highland, the bidding process went better than expected with more bidders than anticipated and with the bids for the secondary building project coming in below expectations.

A total of eight bidders submitted bids for the project. That is a surprising number. Fortunately, there is not a lot of work occurring this spring and the bidders were aggressive.

One of the bidders missed the cut-off by a few minutes and wasn’t allowed to submit their bid. The other seven base bids came in well below the $2.45 million estimate.

The low bidder was Peak Construction out of North Liberty with a bid of $1,886,000 as a base bid. The fact that the bid was almost $700,000 below estimates gives the district the opportunities for alternates to be added to upgrade the project while still providing the district the ability to maintain contingency funds for possible change orders.

Peak Construction included several local subcontractors within their bid including Dickinson Excavation of Riverside, AAA Mechanical of North Liberty, Stevens Erosion Control in Hills, Stransky Concrete of Riverside, Iowa Metal Roofs of Riverside, Merit Electric of Iowa City, Yoder Masonry of Riverside, Walsh Door and Hardware of Iowa City and West Branch Roofing.

Four bidders participated in bidding on the playground project at the elementary with the award being given to J Harding Inc. of Iowa City. The base bid was $388,0000, which was just a little above estimates but not significant in the overall funds.

An alternate bid of $2,600 was accepted by the board to include the installation of a wheelchair accessible glider swing.

It is anticipated that the total project will come in under the $3.7 million bonded for and the district can start paying debt back in bigger chunks at an earlier time to reduce cost to taxpayers even more.

Overall, this project has been good news for the district.  The bulk of the work should be completed prior to the 2020-2021 school year, which is exciting.