Cloverdale schools continue building renovation projects

CLOVERDALE -- The Cloverdale School Board conducted its monthly meeting Monday, discussing issues such as the roofing project and the mechanical bid package.

With nearly half of the board members absent, Donna Fiddler, Dave Brinkman, Bobbi Nees and Duane Huge discussed the ongoing roofing project, which is on track to be done by its December deadline.

Project manager Dan Sulkoske and Odle McGuire Shook construction firm representative Gerard Skibinski came before the board to discuss the project and several of the issues they have run into along the way.

"A lot of things have been uncovered during the course of construction that needed to be corrected," Sulkoske said. "We're using that $50,000 contingency up pretty good at the high school."

Although, the elementary school has not seen many problems, the high school had to have several sections of the roof opened up, as codes were different, when the building was last renovated to now.

"The roofer has gone and opened up all the other areas of the roof to check and see the conditions and uncovered some other things," Sulkoske explained.

"We found some areas where there wasn't any blocking underneath the copings. That may not have been required 15-20 years ago, but today for the wind uplift under the building code changes it's required. Some places we had to add a bunch of blocking and that's a portion of that cost."

Although the project is estimated to be only 40 percent complete at both the high school and the elementary school, Sulkoske and Skibinski do not estimate having to use the remaining amount of the contingency fund, which is around $12,000.

"There's a masonry cap that was up there at the entry of the high school and some of the mortar was really bad. It's just better for you to take that thing off there and wrap it with a rubber membrane and put a metal cap on there just like the rest of your building has, instead of it being and continued maintenance item," Skibinski said. "We've opened up most everything. We hopefully don't have a whole lot coming our way."

Much corrective action has already been taken, which changed the slope of the roof, resulting in about half of a section of the roof at the high school being redone. Reportedly it wasn't fastened correctly by the previous contractor to meet requirements.

Sulkoske later presented the board with nine bids, which were collected for the HVAC project to replace a chiller.

The board decided to go with the base bid for the chiller from Graves Plumbing Co. Inc. at $294,492. The board also decided to accept alternate bids for a new boiler, $173,371 as well as adding a heat exchanger and dry cooler for $156,156. Total cost of the project will be $624,019.

The board decided to not accept the alternate bid for adding a water heater, as it was not a priority at this time along with it not having a good pay back at this time to spend $54,000 on.

The preliminary schedule has Graves Plumbing Co. Inc. installing the chiller and heat exchanger during the winter months, when cooling is not needed. Boiler work will start around April, which was acceptable by the board.

There will be another $50,000 of contingency on this project, however it is not expected to have to be used. After the HVAC work is finished, the corporation will be left with more than $100,000 on the bond for the board to decide what to do with.

The board also agreed to allow Sulkoske to continue its preliminary investigation to research some of the other items on the corporations priority list such as gymnasium paint, track and the storm drainage system. It is likely some of these items may be completed in the spring with some of the leftover money on the bond.

Following the roofing and HVAC project presentations, Superintendent Carrie Milner presented the board with LEA Procedural Audit Results, which showed the corporation receiving a satisfactory grade.

"It's fairly simple, but it's very time-consuming," Milner said. "This all has to do with special education and documentation because it's federal paperwork and federal funds. Every time it comes, it's a little bit different, but we passed, and we are very pleased about that."

The board also honored Ashlynn Basore, Kelsey Helterbrand and MaKayla Moore as the students of the month.

The board also approved the following personnel matters:

* The resignation of Technology Specialist Pam Winers.

* The employment of Jarrod Duff and Dawn Wade as instructional assistants, the employment of Lil Turner as part-time custodian at the elementary and the employment change from full-time to part-time cafeteria worker Francis Lanthier.

* The maternity leave of elementary teacher Rachel Newton.

* The hiring of varsity/JV boys' basketball statistician Chad Chrisman, varsity girls' volunteer assistant Kyle Walter along with seventh- and eighth-grade boys' basketball volunteer assistants Brandon Moon and Jacob Clark.