Kaleb Lawrence, assistant superintendent of operations for Wood County Schools, holds up an example of colored floor titles proposed for the new Lincoln elementary during the Aug. 14 meeting of the Wood County Board of Education as Ryan Taylor, CEO of Pickering Associates, explains their usage. Taylor said Tuesday the team would have to change some of the building material now to help with the rising cost of the project. (File photo)

PARKERSBURG — In an effort to combat rising prices, the Wood County Board of Education approved the $24.6 million bid for the construction of the new Lincoln Elementary to Grae-Con Construction even with the bid coming in at around $5 million over the original projection.

“Our recommendation is that you move forward with the Lincoln bid to award even though it’s over the allocated budget,” said Ryan Taylor, CEO of Pickering Associates.

Taylor said the district faces a $6.2 million overage across all projects and that they are taking a proactive approach to cost savings and contingency planning.

“We were challenged to look and try to decrease that,” Taylor said.

“If you add up all of the over budgets, minus your available funds, your bonds, your SBA funds, your select property sales, your bond premiums, accrued interest, you’re setting at $6.2 million over. And so that’s a lot of money for any organization to find.”

He said with the Lubeck project they are looking at reusing existing furniture to save $350,000 for the district.

“It might be nice to put brand new furniture in a brand new school, but you know where we are,” Taylor said. “I think it’s prudent to consider the opportunity savings of readapting, reusing some existing furniture.”

He said with the new Lincoln project his team has identified $1.6 million in potential savings through value engineering.

“We’ve made a lot of changes. However, no changes to the educational program, no square footage changes. It’s going to look like the same building,” he said.

Taylor said these would include changes to the glazed brick, the walking path planned and reusing furniture for this building, as well.

He said looking at savings with the new Vienna Elementary and Madison Elementary add-ons, with Vienna Elementary still in the design phase, the team will focus on value engineering and improvement alternatives.

“In our current levy, we had set aside where we had money for playgrounds, because we’re trying to make our playgrounds at the elementary schools ADA compliant,” said Superintendent Christie Willis.

Taylor said Madison Elementary’s project includes additions, renovations and infrastructure improvements. He said the group is seeking an School Building Authority grant for sprinklers and windows.

“We’ve already decided to reuse the ceiling tile. It’s in pretty good shape, so you can imagine putting a new sprinkler system through a whole building and taking all that ceiling down,” he said.

The board highlighted the existence of a $7 million Improvement Fund, originally established for emergencies and major capital needs, that could also be used to help off-set growing prices. “We have $7 million in that improvement fund that we could utilize to help us get across the finish line,” Willis said.

Board member Judy Johnson said there are plans to replenish the fund after the completion of current projects.

“Whenever we would be looking at selling properties after that… we can replenish the fund then, and, you know, put the money back, so we would have it for the future,” Johnson said.

Taylor said it was important to have prudent financial management and to be frugal with change orders,

“And we need to keep turning over stones and looking for opportunities (to save),” Taylor said.

With nearly half of the projects already completed and under warranty, Taylor remains optimistic. “The picture looks pretty good at this point in time, in 2025 when you have almost 50% of your projects already done and under warranty,” he said. “If you add up all those opportunity costs and those contingencies, we believe that you’re looking at (an overall overage) of $1-$2 million… if you use 50% of your contingency, because you’re gonna use some of it.”

During public comment, Chad Conley, a former candidate for the board and a one-time critic against the board and its policies, delivered an apology and announced his decision to step away from politics.

“Over the last several months, I’ve done a lot of thinking and reflecting on some of my actions and behaviors in the past, and particularly some of my behaviors directed at the board.” Conley said. “(During the 2022 election), I feel like everything was pretty cordial and fairly friendly… in the last election, I got pretty aggressive. I allowed myself to become influenced by people that had an agenda that probably wasn’t truly in the best interest of education.”

He emphasized the importance of keeping politics out of education.

“Politics have no place in the classroom, and that’s why board of education races are nonpartisan and should remain that way. Our country is more divided now than ever. Politicians want to sell hatred and division, and I’ve decided that that’s a game I no longer want to play.”

Conley apologized for his past behavior and for calling board members “pedophiles by proxy” for appointing a library board member he didn’t agree with.

He said he now wanted to focus on the things that matter the most to him, his family and children.

“I want to set a good example for them and (show them) how to have a professional working relationship with people, and the way I behaved towards you in the past is not an example that I wish to display to them,” Conley said.

Board President Justin Raber thanked Conley for his sincerity.

“On behalf of the board, we do give you our best wishes,” Raber said. “You are on the agenda tonight to be a substitute, and I look forward to approving that.”

The board voted unanimously to accept the personnel agenda approving Conley as a professional substitute.