JG-TC.com > News > School board rejects bid for transportation center, raises meal prices

TODAY'S HEADLINES

SPECIAL SECTION

ONLINE POLL

ONLINE EXTRAS

SITE TOOLS

OTHER LINKS

St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Lee Enterprises

Thursday, July 10, 2008 9:28 PM CDT
School board rejects bid for transportation center, raises meal prices

By NATHANIEL WEST, Staff Writer
nwest@jg-tc.com

MATTOON — The school board earlier this week followed the recommendations of administrators and the Mattoon school district’s architect to reject the lone, $1.825 million bid for constructing a new transportation center.

Administrators told the board at its meeting Tuesday that they will continue to investigate other options for replacing the existing bus garage, maintenance shop and food service storage facilities, which currently are housed in the 1920s-era Brown Shoe Factory.

For more than a year, the school district worked on plans to demolish the dilapidated factory and replace it with a new steel building — all without borrowing money, raising taxes or dipping into budget surpluses. However, in light of increasing funding uncertainties at the state level that could prevent the school district from paying for the new center with available monies, administrators said the district should pursue cheaper alternatives.

“There are other things we might be able to do,” Assistant Superintendent of Business Tom Sherman said at Tuesday’s meeting.

The board’s building committee last week discussed renovating a portion of the existing structure to serve as a bus garage and maintenance shop, with the idea of redistributing food service needs to other sites across the district.

The committee also looked at contracting the construction of a “shell” of a building that district personnel “would finish out kind of on our time,” Sherman said.

The dilemma is that the mandated upgrades and utility expenses at the current facility look to cost more than $2 million over the next decade. Initially, officials believed a new building effectively would pay for itself.

The board voted 6-0 with Board Member Rodney Morris abstaining to reject the $1.825 million bid from Midstate General Contracting — the only contractor to bid on the project.

Also at Tuesday’s meeting, the board approved an increase in meal and milk prices of 10 cents and 5 cents, respectively. This is the first time prices have been raised since 2001, according to Sherman.

“I think that’s pretty remarkable we’ve been able to keep prices where they are,” he said.

Add your comments

*Member ID:
*Password:
Remember login? (requires cookies)
	Forgot Your Password?

Not already registered?
Then click Here.

Comment policy:

JG-TC.com encourages readers to engage in civil conversation with their neighbors. Comments that are submitted are not posted to the site immediately. They go into a queue to be moderated and may take several hours to be reviewed. Comments posted on Saturday may not be reviewed until Sunday afternoon.

In order to keep the page a set width, long lines (mostly long links) will be chopped. Try putting spaces in your links or consider using tinyurl.com to make a smaller link that you can include.

We will never edit or alter your comments, but we do reserve the right to remove comments that violate our code of conduct.

No comment may contain:

* Potentially libelous statements; such as accusing somebody of a crime, defamation of character, or statements that can harm somebody's reputation.
* Obscene, explicit, or racist language.
* Personal attacks, insults, threats, harassment or inciting violence.
* Commercial product promotions.

If you have any questions, please contact our moderator.