×

Salem school board awards $560K AC contract

SALEM — The city school board met in special session via Zoom Tuesday, awarding the high school air conditioning contract to Best Commercial for $560,000.

The project is specifically to replace air conditioning units for the auditorium, along with the band and choir rooms and the library, including the maker space.

District Treasurer Michael Douglas stressed that the money for the project will come from permanent improvement funds, not the general fund. Permanent improvement funds are limited to permanent improvement projects.

One other bid was received, but was higher, he said.

The project had been rebid after the initial bidding process resulted in bids that were more than 10 percent over the estimate for the project. The engineer changed some of the bid specifications to get the new bids to a more reasonable amount.

During the previous board meeting, Superintendent Sean Kirkland told board members they could choose to do part of the project now and the rest at another time or do the whole project at once. He recommended the auditorium be done first since it’s one of the highest traffic spots in the building. He also suggested doing the band and choir rooms then, too, noting “our choir room has no air flow. The kids basically melt in there.”

He said the band room has a door to the outside that can be opened, but he felt it made sense to do both the band and choir room at the same time.

The consensus of board members was to do all the projects at once, including auditorium, band and choir rooms and library/media center.

During the special meeting, the board also approved creation of funds for emergency relief money that’s expected and appropriated $82,480 to the Hannah E. Mullins School of Practical Nursing Emergency Education Relief Fund.

Douglas explained that the nursing school received its first check from the CARES Act related to COVID-19 and planned to distribute the money to the nursing school students.

During the last regular board meeting, the board accepted a donation of $250 from Susan Watkins for the cafeteria and a donation of help from the Youth in Philanthropy group to clean up the trophy area.

The board also approved a memorandum of understanding at that meeting with the Salem Education Association or teachers’ union regarding the payment of supplemental contracts following the canceling of seasons due to COVID-19 and how much will be paid for work already completed.

mgreier@salemnews.net

NEWSLETTER

Today's breaking news and more in your inbox

I'm interested in (please check all that apply)
Are you a paying subscriber to the newspaper? *
   

Starting at $4.39/week.

Subscribe Today