OSWEGO – At the Oswego City School District Board of Education meeting, King + King Architects, a firm working on the district’s Capital Project, offered an update for every phase of the project, including a new budget that is expected to be $24,262,098 over the expected pre-referendum budget.
The increase in the cost of the capital project is in part due to a 30% COVID-19 factor that considers increases in labor, materials and transportation costs. Another large chunk of the increase comes from additional scope items. These items were not considered in the pre-referendum budget and some are not in the plans just yet; however, they are improvements that would be rather useful to the district.
The potential improvements actually came out because of the planning during the last year or so and therefore had not been budgeted for. According to Craig Dailey, a project manager with King + King, additional scope is fairly common for capital projects, “especially when you are dealing with existing buildings.”
Some additional scope items were required to be completed such as the contaminated soil project and the floodplain which was “not known to be a requirement” until the city brought it up, according to Dailey. Other additional scope that is in consideration but has not been approved include renovating the middle school’s art and family and consumer science rooms, the guidance office suites, as well as the cafeteira.
These have not been considered yet because their phases have not started construction.
Currently there is no set schedule for Phase 3 through Phase 5, but King + King did offer a proposed schedule to the board. King + King suggested that the district begin bidding Phase 3A, which consists of work on elementary schools, at the end of November with construction wrapping up in September 2023.
The phase for middle school construction, 3B, is proposed to send the plan to the State Education Department in April 2022 with construction wrapping up in 2024. The final two phases, 4 and 5, are not expected to start in any capacity until 2024 and 2029 respectively.
Prior to the Capital Project update, the board heard from the district’s external auditor, Thomas Zuber. Zuber explained that the district was in really good shape with its finances, despite uncertainty from the state level.
“For the most part, districts did end the year in a much better position because of some of the changes that happened initially,” Zuber said. “Where there’s uncertainty obviously is that there has been some turnover at the state level in the governorship, and we don’t know what direction things are going to go.”
Zuber added that most schools he has worked with this year are in good standing and recommended specifically to the Oswego City School District that it should reinvest the surplus budget in the local portion of the emergency project.
“One of the recommendations is to help support the local portion of the emergency project that the school district had, and that would be through appropriating fund balance and sending the 2022 budget,” Zuber said. “So taking some of that year-end surplus and reinvesting it … would make some really good financial decisions.”
Towards the end of the Superintendent’s Report, Dr. Mathis Calvin III touched on the district’s plan regarding testing for COVID-19. According to Calvin, the state requires schools to have the capacity to conduct surveillance testing and the ability to conduct diagnostic testing or at the very least refer people to local healthcare providers.
In order to offer surveillance testing, the district wants to use Affinity Assure’s pooled testing, as the federal government has a program with it, making the testing free to school districts. The other option is Quadrant Biosciences, the same firm that worked with SUNY for its weekly COVID-19 testing. Working with Quadrant Biosciences would cost $15-20 per test, something that the district would not be able to afford solely using its share of the funding that the county received for schools in July.
The plan for the district is to require weekly testing for unvaccinated faculty and staff, while allowing parents to sign their children up for surveillance testing as well.
As for the resolutions that were put forth across the three subunits of the agenda which include curriculum, personnel and finance, every subject was approved unanimously. The only subject that had to be amended before its acceptance was Subject J of the personnel section. The amendment was to remove the recommendation for Stevie Smith who was previously recommended to a food service helper position at a probationary level.
Agenda items and documents from the meeting can be found here. The full meeting can be viewed in the video link provided above.
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