By Dylan Marsh
EAGLE TIMES STAFF
NEWPORT- The Newport School Board has voted to allow the district to ask the state for additional funding to complete the construction and renovation projects for the Technical Center.
On October 13th, members of the building committee, including school district staff members Eric Perry and Ed Emond, brought forth to the board an update in regard to budgetary concerns regarding the project in light of inflation.
Committee members stated that the estimates for the project were created in August 2021 and then voted forward in March of this year. Since then, rising costs of materials due to nationwide economic inflation have rendered large portions of the project unattainable within the original $15.4 million dollar budget that had been laid out.
“We have to finalize designs that fit within the budget and then have a set of alternative things that are on the compromise list to add back in,” Perry said to the School Board.
While the district will be seeking another $1.5 million of New Hampshire state aid to complete the project as proposed to the taxpayers, they have also taken the time to come up with a contingency plan for how to best appropriate the funds should that money not be attained. The building committee, along with the district, look to start breaking ground on the project in May 2023, and a final decision on design needs to come quickly to stay in line with the projected start date of construction.
While some things may need to be cut to meet the budgetary restrictions, Perry, along with the building committee, have set out specific non-negotiable aspects of construction. First on that list was safety, which Perry said required the group, as well as architects and engineers, to consider the right sizes for the scope of projects as safety was not even an option for budget cuts. Program curriculum was another of the non-negotiable for the group, as the project is under way to not only continue the center’s curriculum but expand on it as well. The other two main focuses for what could not be cut were air quality and modernization in an effort to meet with industry standards.
Looking at potentially necessary cuts, the building committee focused on aspects of the project that were either options that would improve the school but not immediately necessary, as well as options that could be added at a later date when more funding became available. Some of these changes included considering the size and new location of the agricultural building, using less expensive mechanical systems, replacing less of the electrical systems than originally intended, and potential materials required to redo the roof of the center.
According to Emond, if the district was to get an additional $1.5 million the project could be completed as planned. The funding as it stands is currently $11 million from the state and $5 million coming from local funding. The proposed new funding options would be $12.5 million from the state as well as $4.7 million from local funding. School Board member Bill Wilkinson asked exactly where the total $300,000 difference would be coming out of local funding, to which Emond was unsure but stated that they would get back to the board with that information.
Some of the things that could be done include replacing the roof, windows and boiler. While the roof was tested and determined to be in good shape, the project aims to extend the life of the facilities for another thirty years.
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