Thursday, January 4,
2007
Wayland High
School
Language Building
L-9
Attendees
HSBC members: Lea Anderson, Josh Bekenstein, Dianne
Bladon, Steve Breit, Brian Chase, Jim Howard, Fred Knight, David Lash, Mary
Lentz, Joe Lewin, Cindy Lombardo, Jennifer Steel
Absent: Karen Talentino, Eric Sheffels,
Steve Tise
Ex Officio
members: Gary
Burton, Bob Gordon
HMFH/Turner Team:
Dick Amster,
George Metzger
Call to order – HSBC Chairman, Lea Anderson,
called the meeting to order at 7:40 p.m.
3. Turner
Report is the result of a request by Dr.
Burton to develop a repair plan for WHS.
An appropriation of $50,000 was made at the 2006 Annual Town Meeting to
plan and carry out the most immediate repairs. The plan calls for approximately $1.5M
annually for the next three years to maintain the buildings. The School Committee is very reluctant
to spend money, unless absolutely necessary, in anticipation of a long-term
solution.
4. New England
Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC)
issued its accreditation report in September 2005. WHS conducted an 18-month self-study
prior to the NEASC committee visit in the spring of 2005. The commission granted
WHS full accreditation, but offered strong recommendations regarding building
conditions. NEASC asked for a
special progress report, which Charlie Ruopp submitted in March 2006. NEASC has asked for a specific update on
facilities and space concerns at the two-year mark (October, 2007) when they
expect more significant progress on recommendations. At the five year point, fall of 2010,
they expect completion of all recommendations.
Charlie explained that
the NEASC uses a rating system with four categories: exemplary, acceptable,
limited, and deficient. WHS is
already deficient regarding facilities meeting federal and state laws, local
fire, health, and safety regulations.
The NEASC will not give a school a full five years to address every
recommendation. The highest
priority, health and safety of students and teachers, will have to be addressed
in 12 months. The next tier of
recommendations has 24 months, with all recommendations met by 5 years. If a school system does not respond in a
timely manner, then the progression of adverse actions moves from full
accreditation to warning to probation to termination of
accreditation.
Discussion
followed:
- We
will need to keep the NEASC up to date on status, such as the vote on funds this
spring, or substantial change in conditions.
- Good intentions don’t
count with NEASC. They want
solutions.
- MSBA will probably not get
too excited if a school moves to “warning”.
- The School Dept. plans to
spend as little as possible to do repairs.
Update on cost assumptions – Dick Amster, project manager, gave the HSBC an
update on construction costs. He
reported that not many public school projects are being bid currently. Cost escalation (inflation) in the
construction business is much higher than the estimates we used to budget our
proposal. Reasons are the demand for building materials in China, Hurricane
Katrina, the Iraq war, and oil stocks.
Escalation was actually 10% in 2004, 10% in 2005, and 8% in 2006. Our proposal estimated 3% in 2005, 4% in
2006, and 4% in 2007. New
escalation estimates for 2007 are uncertain.
Dick reported that Newton
North High School is now estimated at $141 million. It is a 400,000 square foot building
with pool, field house, and a 30,000 sq. ft. tech ed space – much different from
our project. The cost per square
foot is $355, about $20 of which is the premium for the special aspects. Dick guesses that the cost per square
foot for a school project bid today would be $320 - $330. Wayland’s proposal was $245 per square
foot with a mid-point of construction in 2007
Dick mentioned two
elements of reform: the pre-qualification of sub-contractors and construction
manager at risk. He said that all
the “usual suspects” have been pre-qualified. Construction manager at risk is an
approach that is being tried by several towns. With CMR, the lowest bid is not
necessarily selected. A ranking
committee reviews proposals. A
negotiation takes place and a guaranteed price is set no sooner than the 60%
completion of construction documents.
He reported that there is
a projection for $5-7 billion worth of commerciical
building projects inside Rte. 495.
This will put a lot of pressure on costs.
Discussion
followed:
- The effect of this news is that there will be pressure on labor as well
as materials.
- Does construction only go up in price? In other industries things go up and
down. A 20-year trend would be 3 or
4 % inflation on average in other industries, not the huge numbers we heard
about tonight.
- Construction costs went down in 1990 and then took
a slow climb up in the 90s.
- This was relatively controlled until China,
Katrina, Iraq, oil
- There is contraction in the public sector. Newton had only two responses for
construction manager.
- Some say escalation in 2007 will be
10%.
- Labor accounts for 35% of cost; materials account
for 65%.
- Are there estimators who are
better?
- Field of bidders is diminishing in the public
sector.
- There are not the building design/construction
efficiencies in the school sector because they tend to be one-of-a-kind projects
on complicated sites.
- SBAB was pretty close to our estimate of cost per
sq. ft. last time. MSBA should
index to industry standard cost in the future.
- The MSBA process does not make sense. The old SBA at least got steps in the
right order. It does not appear
that the new process does.
- We should push the MSBA
politically.
- We should set up another meeting to inform MSBA of
our approach and ask for their advice.
- There are some reasonable people at
MSBA.
- Let’s look at the current list of SOIs. Where does Wayland fit in terms of
number of high schools, facility scores of 3 vs. 4, etc?
- Should we ask MSBA if they would accept our study
as the Feasibility Study?
- The new solution will not necessarily be what we
did last time. We are charged with
looking at different price points.
- MSBA just completed its audit of the middle school
project and approved a total project of around $12 million, 61%
reimbursable. This is good news for
the town as it is a higher number than we had expected.
Next steps – The group
will meet one or two more times in the next month to review assumptions on
enrollment, to review a draft presentation for community groups, and to
strategize on design approaches.
There was no consensus on
going forward with small study groups.
There was consensus on the importance of participating in small group
discussions over the next few months before Annual Town
Meeting.
Action items for the next meeting on Jan. 18
- HSBC members will let Lea know
what community groups they have a connection with.
- Dianne will work on a draft
presentation.
- Steve B. will look at towns
that have submitted Statements of Interest.
- HSBC members will think about
design approaches in preparation for discussion.
Motion – A motion was made by Cindy
Lombardo and seconded by Josh Bekenstein to approve the minutes of HSBC meeting
#43 held on Thursday, Dec. 14, 2006.
Vote – The motion was approved
unanimously - 12 in favor, 0 opposed.
Comments and questions from observers: There were no comments,
Adjournment – The HSBC adjourned at 9:36
p.m.
Observers: Lisa Valone