001All right. Good afternoon. It is May 19th, 2025. The time is 400 pm. This is a special meeting of the Argal ISD board of trustees. At this time, we will determine if a quorum is present. Lanna McDade, present. Josh Weston, present. Rich McD present. Lean Arto present. Matt Sllayton present. Craig Hawksworth present. Sam Slater present. If you'll please rise for our pledge of allegiance. I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Honor the Texas flag. I pledge algiance to thee, Texas. One state under God, one and indivisible. One time 11 years. I need to rewrite that text. All right. Mr. Hawksworth, if you'll lead us in our opening prayer, please. Dear Lord, thank
002you for this time today. Thank you for us being able to come together uh for the benefit of the students of this district. um after the ones that graduated last night and the new ones that are coming our way. I appreciate everybody's time um and interest in the students of this district and please watch over us and guide us in your name. Amen. Amen. All right, we did not have anyone sign up for public forum comment. So at this time we will move towards the workshop portion of our meeting. are going to I'm going to turn it over to Miss Stewart and Mr. Hland and they're going to run our construction workshop, but we do have right at an hour. So, I will let them talk about our agenda. Thank you. So we do have
003a few things on the agenda tonight and with the hour time frame uh we felt like the majority of the discussion may revolve around elementary school 5. Um so we have that at the end of the agenda. So just as a reminder as we go through the first few things maybe 15 20 minutes before we get to elementary 5. So if we get bogged down on something we can always come back and address it if we have time at the end. But we do want to give fair time to elementary 5 discussion. Okay. Let you take it from here, Jeff. All right. Uh so these are the the topics we'll be talking about here in this order. Elementary 5 being last. So try to to get through these uh in about 15 20 minutes uh
004and get to elementary 5 where we think most of the time is going to be spent. So the first topic uh want to talk to you about just the high school site in general from an irrigation perspective. Uh we've had problems with our well as I think most of you know for a while now. We've spent money repairing it a couple of times. Uh it is currently nonfunctional right now. Uh with the succession of projects we've had we've had some different contractors. We had different designers come in. So I think over the course of of the last five years with these multiple projects uh we've gotten some gaps in this system as a whole uh our well being a critical piece of that essentially the well was the water source for the front half of
005the campus. Uh the south half of the campus was on city water. Uh but now that we've come in with the stadium and the indoor activity center, we've we've affected all of those water sources except for one. So we've removed seven of those water meters that we had providing water to the south half. We have a well not functional for the north half. So we've got some temporary connections that have been made so we can get water throughout the system. But that also requires us to do some things that we typically wouldn't do such as opening master valves so we've always got water mans under pressure. So if we get leaks that we don't discover soon then we lose a lot of water. So those are some of the issues that that we're facing with
006with this succession of projects and and different people on each one. So kind of looking ahead, uh it's my recommendation, our recommendation that we engage a professional designer, uh that can bring that knowledge, design something for the whole site, looking at the pieces that we've done in the past, someone that can bring in the experience in and expertise on a well, whether we fix the well we have, do we need to look at a new well because there are some concerns about the water table out here and the current depth of our pump. It's as low as it can go, which is less than 1,000 ft. Uh so we're suggesting that we bring in that person and they can kind of do a study, do some designs, do some budgeting and help guide us through
007a solution that we could implement that would get this canvas back where it needs to be with all the right monitors and checks uh to avoid some of these costly leaks that we have had in the past. So, just very briefly wanted to bring that to you and that's that's what we would propose moving forward. Uh, our south half, everything new that's being touched will be fixed when they're done, but we still have this north half to to kind of untangle, if you will, and get back on track. So, how much would you say that we have spent on this well situation? I know we've at least since I've been on the board, we've dealt with that before well at least twice majorly. I brought it to you twice, I believe, since I've been here.
008Uh I didn't look up those totals, but it's probably $120,000, I think, plus plus the initial spend. Yes. because the site this I mean the high school site is not I mean what 21 2021 uh well the the middle school phase one was 2015 that's when the well went in and then the first major addition was phase two in 2021 uh and at that point in time that's when the well repairs started uh I don't know if they hit the line when they're drilling some peers or they found that it was in conflict and moved it but that happened like right before I came on board of the district. So at the time phase two kicked off, that's that's when these things these events started happening. Okay, I'm going to say my piece and then
009be done. I promise you that one if from my perspective, one of the challenges I have with these types of situations is I want to hold somebody accountable for the the system not performing. And what you're telling me is there's really not because of the different contractors and subs that have been used on the different phases for the site that everybody has a little hand in it. That that is correct. There's not an at fault scenario. Goes to the benefit of sometimes why you you you like arch uh contractors and architects from sight to sight because now we have accountability. Yes. Consistency. So, I like, you know, maybe that's something to think of down the road. But overall, the site looks bad. I mean, I was actually spent a lot of time off graduation ceremonies
010and it was really focused on it. This is really bad and it needs to be fixed. And so, I'm exploring how to do that. So, um, when you guys I know you guys use whether it's AV or, you know, you guys have consultants, I think y'all call them that y'all bring to the table. Do y'all do that in landscape? Yes, we do. Um, does that include irrigation? Typically, irrigation, um, they can do that. uh they also a lot of times go to the actual manu or the subcontractors that actually perform the work that kind of are the specialist that all but all that all that rolls up under you guys it it the one I know we've used different contracting but the one consistent over there is you guys um it was for two of
011the projects landscape has changed with the new field correct right but the new field has brought a challenge, right? But we had we've had other repairs prior to that. Yes, we've had other repairs prior to that which which was not an at fault of of the designer we had which was consistent between phase one and phase two. We still had problems between phase one and phase two. That that's when our well equipment was failing, you know, for different reasons that I can't, you know, give you with certainty what they were, but we know that that pump motors had gone out a few times, wires burnt up. I guess I guess my struggle is some someone like Mr. Western is, you know, if you were if we were spending our own personal money, which for a
012lot of us this is, um, we would want to hold somebody accountable. And if we know that a project is going to have multiple phases, how are we not planning for these multiple phases to say, hey, when we if we put this here, right, just know it's going to have to be dug up and moved. So, we have to think I feel like we we're not thinking ahead and it's costing us money. And now I I don't know what the number is you're going to tell me it's come to me to fix it, but I'm sure it's going to be significant. My question is then is that how long is that good for? And this isn't really I'm not throwing that at you, Jeff. You happen to be the messenger, but I mean, how long
013is it good for? We go spend a million dollars or whatever the number is. That good for a year, is it good for two years? What's how long is it good for? Somebody's got to be there does have to be somebody held accountable or warranty the work or something cuz we I mean this project to to Miss McD Dr. from day to point is we've had this well we've had well issues since a year after we insult them even so much that we had to go to city water right so I don't know what the answer is but I I don't know I from this point forward somebody whoever we do the job with needs to understand we are going to hold them accountable that it works the way it was designed to work for
014a period of time and it's not a year Yes. Yes. And that and that's why making this recommendation and I've talked with a few firms and and I feel there's some firms out there that can definitely take that responsibility on and provide that. So the so the consultant that you guys used maybe it was different from phase to phase. They don't they don't share any of that responsibility. Well the phase one was where the well was in installed and utilized. When we got to phase two, we were directed not to do another well. So that's when the decision was made to go to uh city water at that time. But I'm talking about the the not working of the first well. Yeah. And I don't know that we I I guess timeline we were brought
015up that it wasn't working until after phase 2 was in construction, which was how many years? Six, seven years after the first one. So I think we definitely We're not made aware of that up until then. That's when we found out was once phase two was completing. I think is when we first were notified. And I kind of recall after the last time we did a repair of sorts, the warranty period wasn't very long or at least should be. It was on it was one year. Yeah. One year. It was a year warranty. Right. But we're talking about a couple of different things. We're talking about the well, the pump. We're talking about all the irrigation, all the zones, all the everything. And so, I mean, you can, you know, split those up any way
016you want, but I mean, ultimately the problem is, and kind of leaning on what Mr. Hawksworth and Westerm said when we get this fixed, if anybody comes out to do any more construction in the future, then when they dig a hole, they should know that they're about to bust into a particular zone and what needs to be done to make sure that there are no leaks and once whatever they're doing is complete that there are no issues with the irrigation system. So let me let me ask a follow up. The elementary five and then middle school two, right? Do you guys use a consultant for that? And was irrigation part of that plan? Yes. Correct. Okay. So if they dig something up as a result of having to build a second school, that's on you
017guys. It'd be part of the coordination. Us and the contractor. Yes. But if it's not coordinated, like it was in here and it gets destroyed, that's on them. It'd be between us and the contractor depending on what it was. Yeah. What What was the Do you remember? Well, it's probably a crazy question about the city water and the bill and that because we didn't do it for a long time, but we did it for a while. Didn't do city water. Uh we don't have any good uh consistency in watering to give me that historical data on what it would cost. We've tried to run some numbers uh but I don't have the site as a whole. I only kind of have the south half. Um but it was uh several hundred,000 a year if you
018were to water it as a landscape architect would recommend which is going to be a lot more water than than we typically would do. We could get by with less and still have it look acceptable. And it's still several hundred,000 even at that level. I'm sorry. I have one more. Um would you guys be open to splitting it with us to fix it? All the design and the money you've made off this district in the last few years. We definitely have to look at the situation. Um I know for the fact for the phase two that we I don't remember if the design was touching the well. We were just maintaining what was in the phase one. So anything that happened um I'd have to go back and look at the record. I understand it
019was from something that we weren't it wasn't changed. See if they're willing to help support us. Yeah, it wasn't changed after all in their phase two. It did, you know, it was the same designer, so he did have a whole site design, but it's all centered around that well, which was not functional. And so that's where the issue comes in is what we've had to do to get water there. That's the issue. It was designed for that source and we we don't have it. So, was the well not big enough in the first place? Uh the well, excuse me, the pump or the well pump the the pump was big enough. The well was not drilled 8 inch diameter to the bottom. So, we can't set the pump any lower. So, as our water table
020drops, when you kick on that pump, it draws that water table down. And we're getting very close now to where we're going to be pulling that down to a dry condition. It will ruin the pump. So, was it supposed to be drilled 8 in to the bottom? We're not allowed to do that. No, you can't. That's just was not the design approved back then in 2015 16. But who's approving the design? it it would have been through the district. I mean, I wasn't here at the time, so I can't speak to who actually did, but look, I'm not sitting here reviewing well depths and design. Okay. And so, are they is the expectation that we hire these people to design a landscape plan and that we expect them, we're not budget cutting, we're not value
021engineering it. They bring us a plan that they think's going to work and we approved it. And if it doesn't work, then somebody needs to own it, not the district. And that's what I think. I mean, is it is there ownership of this or is there just saying, you know what, that's just the way it sometimes go because we didn't, from my understanding, the district didn't say, hey, let's penny pinch here. Let's value engineer. We did what the consultants told us to do. Yeah. And now you're back a few years later saying it's not a good design. And then you say the district approved it. I don't think that's true. We just approved what the consultants told us is going to work which came to the architect. Yes. And and again I believe the design
022was always for it at the initial design for phase one where we never heard it did not work to that design. What we understood is when phase two happened, there was something wrong with the well, but we did not understand that it was the design capacity that we designed to it that we we never heard otherwise. It was just it was the well wasn't working. But you're not you're not proud of how it's working. Just just tell me that. Say just say I am not proud of how this landscape plan has played out for the district. It it should work. The pump should work for what it was designed for and it hasn't. And say it's not the district's fault. Yeah. I don't think it was the district's fault. Okay. I don't know when it
023happened. So, I'm assuming we're getting short on time if we're going to get through this. So, potential manage. Okay. Sorry. All right. Uh want to talk to you also about uh state indoor activity center about our contingencies where some of that money's been spent where we're at today. Uh so this chart uh this has it broken out. We've got three categories of contingency that we set up at the beginning and so we've been tracking expenditures uh against each category. U so you can see that detail here but really the two numbers to look at are those bottom two. That's the three contingencies combined per project since they're separate projects, separate props. So, we've got a remaining balance as of this snapshot day of 51,000 for the indoor activity center. That's to finish to get to
024the end. And we've got remaining contingencies of 39,000 on the stadium to get to the end and complete that. So, we're running very low on contingencies. Um, this slide shows you the interest that we've earned. And uh if you recall when we first brought the project in, it was it was over the construction budget, but we had a path to get there using some of the projected interest. So, we've actually uh achieved that, gotten there, broken that that threshold, and now we're actually earning interest that can be spent back in this project. Uh so here you'll see stadium on the left. Uh we've got 681,000. Uh that's actually through March. Um and then on the indoor activity center, we've got 390,000. So for uh April, we've got about an additional 90,000 total to add to
025that. So we're we're somewhere a million1 uh something on that total. So here uh I've gone back to the contingency expenditures and kind of categorized some of these uh just into some larger categories. I mean there's been quite a number of things that we spent money on credits we've gotten back um throughout the course. So I just took out the ones that that were showing the highest uh cost. So I've got you know each one of these has several items in there. So with various tracking and turf and field event conditions that we found as we've built, we are looking at investing about 250,000 of these funds in those. Um that could be for subgrade prep or uh repairing some track edge conditions so that we can finish the new paving into the the existing
026track and having a good smooth transition. uh site irrigation issues that we just kind of touched on with needing to get someone to look at the site as a whole. Uh through the so through the course of the project, we've had to deal with a lot of irrigation issues that we wouldn't have known about until we you know after we got into this project uh site electrical issues that we've found where we've had to relocate some parking lot light circuits. We are having to relocate the circuits that go out to the baseball softball lighting um because they were actually in the way and too shallow as it turns out. Uh and then broadly categorized just safety, security, communications issues. So this is some of the tech things uh that we've had to incorporate into the
027project as we went through. Um, all this to say, um, we're proposing to add money to the contract to increase these contingencies back up to make sure we have enough to get to the end of the project. Uh, and by having this in the project, that makes it available to to go ahead and make those decisions to keep the project moving at a a quicker pace. And so, here we've uh talked with contractor. We're proposing to bring to you uh a request for 300,000 to be put back into the stadium project contingencies and $150,000 on the indoor activity center from the interest. And this is all coming from project interest, which we're at uh we're well over a million dollars in interest and that's usable interest today. Uh, and so this is 450,000 of that
028and we will continue to earn interest although it does shrink each month a little bit. So you're basically saying if I did the math right to take the 681,000 on the stadium interest plus 39,000 contingency that's left. No, we're adding that to the contingency in a smaller portion of what's being allocated. Now, we're adding and taking out 300,000. We want to add 300,000 to replenish it. We have 681,000 available as of the end of March. Okay. And so that would still leave the 391,000 as interest there. And that interest in those propositions can has to stay in those propositions. it does. They're all of those propositions. So, having this on here, what we're talking about is potential bring an action item back to you in June that addresses um this contract. Are we getting anything
029extra for what this additional investment or we just getting enough money in the pot to get what we originally planned for originally plan? So, it's just it's just simply So, where did we miss? Can you go back to the previous slide? One more. Sorry. This one. Yeah. Just so I'm reading this correctly, right? So 300,000 on the stadium is where we started, right? For contingency. Is that correct? For the owner contingency. Yes. We had 125 in what we call the site signage and town comments allowance. And then we had 150,000 what we called technology and power related. So it was the total of those uh three that we had for the stadium project. and 575. So for so as an example, the stadium site signage and town comments, we had 125 and we spent 200.
030Yes. And do we know what's driving that? Do we not something we missed in the planning that we didn't expect to cost what it cost or we just didn't plan for it or Well, no. This this will be things that we we know are going to happen through the plan reviews. They're going to make comments that will require us to add scope to the project to comply with those comments. It may not necessarily have been identified at bidday, say correct the exact nature of that. So, right. That's that's the question is if there was $125,000 identified as contingency, we've gone well over that. So, we clearly missed the mark. So, it's it's things that you that were not in the original bid because we were still going through plan review when the when the bid
031happened. And so there's things like additional screening that the city the town asked for that were then had to be provided which was peers and beams and masonry to screen some areas that they required screening that was not in the original scope. That's that's as an example. So that was the additional the scope in that wasn't included. So, I feel like I've got to say something here because I was on the 22 bucks. And the reason we did the stadium for the price of the stadium and the indoor facility and all that is because we already had the turf. We already had the lights. We already had all this stuff. And this is going to be this new grand project we're going to have with 9,000 seats and all that sort of stuff. And then
032to come in and and start I mean turf I mean the turf hadn't changed. No, that I think the turf charge the turf is the um is to repair around the perimeter of the track and some other things like that. Jeeoff, is that is that accurate? It is. And so it's existing turf this kind of life cycle cost. I mean it's even um deteriorated a little bit from when we started the project to now. And I wouldn't attribute it to construction or anything. I think it's just you know just natural kind of the earth is moving around that around the track a little bit. So it's replacing the and repairing the curve around the perimeter of the turf. So, we didn't include any any all the existing turf was existing. Same thing with the track.
033Um, the field sports were new as part of this scope and the lights were new as part of this scope. Uh, because the location that they were in didn't work with the parking lots that were added and and I know that was that predated you on the board, but we talked through Well, we talked about it in the bond that those lights were going to be able to be used and we would be able to use the facility as it as it stood. You were you said that because that's what we were told, right? But that didn't end up happening. Oh, we were going to take Well, we are moving them now. We originally put it in back when we built that field in those. They were all in the infrastructure was in for when
034we stated, but that didn't end up paying out. And that that was a communication error, was it not? Like not on us. It just wasn't communicated from when we purchased them with bond buttons. I don't know the reason. I just know that's what we were told to decide to put in structure in. But I heard something a minute ago too that the the softball light switch or baseball softball light switch wasn't buried deep enough. Uh they couldn't have buried it as shallow as we found it. So I think what happened is it went in early and then they came back probably graded later. So we're causing it to be shallow potentially. I mean potentially but to go down that road would delay this project to try to enforce anything that you know may or may
035not be enforceable. We'd have to do some consults on that. I mean that that's just my guess as to what happened. I I cannot prove that's what happened. I would I would add that our original contingencies as a total was 2.5% on a project of this nature. Uh I wouldn't ever recommend going in less than four. So did we do that to make it fit in a budget? And that was one of the reasons we tightened those up was to help with the budget because we were already over. So it is slimmer than than what I would have wanted. So it pacifies us on paper knowing that it was going to go over because it was too slow. Well, I wouldn't say knowing that it's going to go over. We we've encountered a lot of
036things on this site that we could not have known about that are well beyond what we could have absorbed in the contingency. Can Can you give me a couple of those? probably that's well that's so the the stuff not being buried deep enough welling it after they buried it it was in the way anyway even had been deep enough it would still be in the way and would have had to been relocated so the fact it's not deep enough is not necessarily completely relevant to that because we would have to move it anyway but we would not have had any way to know that so when a project is designed um especially on a site that exists in you're adding stuff to it. Do you guys get insight as to where things is to where
037things are before you start designing? Typically, we count on the asbuilt construction drawings that were created by the previous contractor. So, as part of what they owe to you when they finish the job, they'll run well, there was some discrepancy. It didn't appear that that there were lines indicated to be where we found them. Um, and I did their due diligence as well ahead of time to the best of their ability. It was I think it was a little surprising that it was so quite so shallow. It was an unusual condition. That's there were some things that were hit that were part of, you know, that could have been anticipated and those were not charged through to you guys. That was taken care of by, you know, the group that was responsible for hitting them.
038They're fixing them. So, focus making sure I think the only cost that was absorbed by the district is the ones that for instance there was a few a few lines that were not shown on bill drawings but they happen to run right through the middle of the ice so it has to be relocated it can't stay where where it currently is. So those type of things are are the ones that there were a cost associated with um we absorbed the pogo did hit the the lights at the tennis court. We paid for that on our dime and I we absorbed every bit of that our contractors. But the one but the ones where there was cost associated is is the only ones where they were not represented on the drawing. There was no way of
039knowing that they were there and they had to be relocated in order to to complete the current project. We can bring this back in June to discuss more, but just for time sake to be able to get to elementary five, I suggest we might move to the next one, which is a quick look at the 2025 bond schedule. Um, so of course in the bond plan, we had an original plan of what the sales would be. Um, and this is just we've worked through trying to update and make sure that we have everything falling in line. Um, so really what we've identified in 25 are what we feel like the sale needs to capture there, which is a little over 72 million and in 26 um just under 46 million and then um in 27
040129 million and it goes forward from there. So, um, a couple of things that we've identified that we've brought into 25 are and I've listed out, um, in the first year down at the bottom, capital improvements, um, for example, at Hilltop, there was some erosion at one of the, uh, building that was on the list. We felt like that really needed to to be looked at um, immediately rather than even waiting a year. And so, if you're going to go touch the exterior, we felt like we need to do everything in the exterior all as one project. Okay. So, that's why part of that's been brought forward. Sixth grade center, um, you know, there were just a handful of things on that that we felt like needed to be looked at immediately. The storm line,
041the storm drain line, um, the replacement of the bleachers, and then the HVAC systems that are at end of life 377. Um, we talked about all the turf, uh, replacements, track resurface, um, and the baseball softball concession and covered seating. The one that we felt like we needed to move up was the theater rigging and lighting. Um the more we've looked into that, uh we feel better about moving that up and we're going ahead and working on that rather than pushing that. Uh I think that was later in 29. Um and then of course Canyon Falls, uh we had always talked about the academic hallway connector being this first bond sale. Um the rest of those I believe have all been within that first sale that we've talked about. Um, but if you have any
042questions about that, we do plan on bringing that in June and in July uh to look at to move forward with the sale this summer. Um, and RBC is working through um what that looks like for us and the timeline. So that that 72 million is basically an RBC recommendation that that's what we can sell. We took we provided this to them and said, you know, does this work? Is this within our capacity? and that's what they're working on now that they felt like yes um we'd actually given them the numbers because we were still working on some numbers so we said use 75 million as a planning tool and so that's what they're working on and giving to us but yes initially they felt like that would work for us we've had our first
043look at our uh property value for next year of course we don't get our we don't receive our certifies until July but we're still we're up over 20% as an initial look we know that will drop we feel like down to 13 to 15% range is where we'll end up Um, but it did give the ability as of the end of April to see what that first look is. But we did want to talk that through with you just a little bit before we bring it to you in June and July to look at. The only comment I'm going to make is sixth grade center is something that I always would like to push off to the latest in hopes that we can find a different path forward for the district as opposed to continuously
044investing in that site in a way that I find that to be a pretty expensive site for one grade and you know having to staff it with police officers and principles and librarians and nurses and stuff like that that Um hopefully there's a path forward for the district where that sixth grade center would no longer be a part of the plan. We'll go back and take another look at those and see if that can wait till another day. Well, I think you see I mean I think the building more like gym and some of those spaces. So on the 377 it says baseball softball concessions and then turf replacement. Is that turf replacement baseball softball or baseball softball football? everything over there right now. Um, we will have before we actually move forward, we will
045have to analyze them and have someone come in and test them and make sure of the useful life left, but you know, on paper they're all on their end of their useful life. So, so it's not necessarily a done deal. That's what you're you would use it for, but somebody's going to come in and say, "Hey, you can get another 12 months, 18 months out of this one." Or now they're going to mobilize. I get it. You probably need to I'm assuming you can probably save money doing them all at once versus Um, at least baseball, softball together, football by itself maybe versus mobilizing three times. Um, but I I I struggle with that one a little bit. Specifically, if it's football only, because we're about to You just said we're about to do it
046over here, too. Right. No, I'll replace it right now. No, we're just trimming up the edges. Yeah, it's actually not the turf. It's the track, too. Right. It's the track. It's the track edge of the track. Not the turf. Not the turf. Okay. Set to open school 29. Okay. Uh just have a quick update on the middle school. Uh the town has come back and asked us to submit for separate permits on this short list of items. Um this is direct from the town. Uh some of these are pretty much unheard of. Discus and chocolate pads because of the metal post that hold the net, but we are working on that right now to get these things submitted and see where we go. There will probably be additional fees. It's what I'm expecting from the
047town, but they haven't said so. rescue. Uh that's just what they've asked for. Anything they can do to be abandoned as that's their goal. So it's not holding up a project. It's just some more more paperwork that we've got to work to do with the town. To what end? I I don't understand to what end. I mean, we we submitted everything together and it was specifically addressed in our application that it was for everything, but And they they pulled them out and they want them done. They've identified them and want them done separately. Okay. And so can we go back to what happened? This is a post discussion. Okay. Element number five. Uh just a quick review uh contract status. So we've got uh Pogue on board as our CM. That was a package was
048awarded with the middle school back in August 23. We've got Corgan on board as architect that was awarded back in April of 23. Currently in the process of of actually doing the third party storm shelter review. He's gotten on board. Uh and then we'll be going out and requesting budget for our material testing service uh in the next two to four months. The plan would be to bring that along with the GMP to you at the same night for information and action so we can kick the project off. Can I ask one other question on permits? Sure. Before we go too far, you said it's generally you're feeling that this is unheard of. Is that fairly common to have I mean if you submit everything all at one time, it's not common for them to
049pull things out. We we have not seen this to this degree on other locations, other cities we worked in. It's very common to issue our full set of plans with all the accessories, especially goalpost and shop put discus nets. I mean, that's all just part of the the contract documents that we have. Want a fence per signage? Signage and fence are the two that we typically see. So that's not unheard of, but I've never been asked this before on any other uh jurisdiction. Okay. Okay. Uh permitting status of elementary 5 uh site plan was approved at the April town council meeting. Uh we do have our civil engineering development package uh into the town for review now. Yeah. And then our building package actually is scheduled, I believe, to be sort of admitted this week,
050right? Yeah. So, tomorrow, sorry. Tuesday. So, we'll have that in for review. Uh, and I would anticipate uh release for building permit by the end of the summer probably. We don't think there'll be too many comments having just gone through this with the middle school. We would expect this. Are you sure? We would expect this to be a fairly easy process. But, are you sure? You know, I'm not sure. No, I am not. Let's hope for easy expect anomaly at this. Yes, but we have to plan for something. So, we're trying to balance what we expect with a little bit of hesitation. So, this is our projected timeline based on that. Um, we should have our final construction documents issued by July 3rd. If it goes well with the town, that could be a lot
051sooner. Uh, right now though, we're planning on this with a bid date end of July. And then uh that would give us time to have GMP brought to you in September for information and October for improvement. So we will be starting around November 1st of this year with a substantial completion currently uh early January 27th and then doing our punch list final completion furniture deliveries ahead of school by a few months so that we're not all crammed in that one summer trying to wrap it up. Does it help any if we have a meeting sooner than waiting five weeks between information only and then approval? Uh, everything would help. Yes. If we want to try to accomplish the project sooner, everything we can do will help. All right. What it also helps with is with
052a schedule like this, we have to indicate to our bids and our bid packages that their bids have to be held for up to 90 days. So, they're building in additional escalation knowing that contracts won't be awarded for a certain period of time. If you expedite that and have the proposal one week prior to approval, then that cuts an easily 30 days off of that whole period. I I'd like for us to, you know, think of a way where we can be more efficient in our review process where we don't need five weeks to and see if we can cost that wise. Yep. Okay. Uh then here's uh this is a snapshot uh comparing our elementary core GMP to the budget we got proposed on our 60% set for elementary 5. Uh one thing I
053do want to point out is that this uh 60% budget has a $2.5 million allowance for an access road to the site. Uh we did have an easement that we negotiated and got signed and recorded that we can have an access road with Sam Davis to the north along that western property line parallel. So the church that owns the next two lots and we've got I think it's a 30ft easement across the the western side of those two lots. So that's something that you know can be in or out but right now with this number you're seeing that is in okay don't so I just want to point this out and I you know as somebody that just can't understand these construction cost what what you're saying on this slide is is that this the
054JRE ES4 that we started constru construction in June of 23 came in at $413 a square foot. Yes, that same [Music] school that we're going to start in June 25 hopefully is now coming in at $500 a square foot. Yes, that's what this tells us. That's $87 a square foot more for the same school in two years. And what's the explanation? So, we are still working on on defining that as best we can. I'm going to let Pope speak to this because they're, you know, deep in the weeds on this. So, I'll just let you take it. So, we've been through this exercise over the last week or so. There's there's a couple of of driving factors. I apologize. Um, obviously for the anomalies that we found, steel steel has been a driving factor across
055the board. I think across the board I think we we were told that there is a price increase expected in the 20% over in the next 90 days just on steel. So that one's went up considerably. Um so you're forecasting that price increase. You haven't seen it yet. It's your forecast. We are and we're trying we're trying to protect you guys with with numbers that we got here today saying look this is what we build the school for. I'll also say that there was several opportunities ahead of us that we were that we were set up with. We had a workshop of our own that we had talked about together and and we just didn't get there yet. We presented the 60% set. We went through this and we were going to sit in a
056room and work through this. Not only the B options that you guys agreed to on infantry 4, we were going to look for other opportunities as well. We've done some comparative analysis from the elementary 4 to elementary 5 all the way down to the site with with the linear footages for our utilities with the square footages on our on our paving all of those things and we we've we've looked at those cost and and yes there is some some huge raises even though there's less linear footage in utilities even though there's you know less square footage in bake and we've done so much of those um there there really is it's just driven by inflation and then there's there's a there's a tariff factor in a lot of of the things that we're dealing with.
057Can I inter I want to preface what I'm about to say. First of all, I I I'm very appreciative of Pog's partnership with our district in in the sites that you're building now and the sites that you have built is I think it's important for our community to know that POE has built um South and they built JRE, right? and they're building the stadium and you built those on time and as best I can tell they're they have been well functioning facilities. We I don't have Jeff coming back here saying there's been lots of defects or problems. So I I just want to say thank you for that because we've had probably sites where we've had those problems and we're hearing about some of them with different contractors. So that's the positive side. district. Now,
058when you say when you say that you're building these prices in to protect the district, it's really fair to say you're building in the higher steel prices to really protect in case those tariffs happen because when you set the GMP, that's the price. If it goes over, that's on you. if it comes under. So, it's building in the tariff inflation doesn't necessarily protect the district, it protects the contractor. But I I also feel like my my job is to give you the most accurate information that I can. And I want to set you up for success in regards to what I'm reporting. And and and as as we give you numbers, I want you to trust them and understand where they come from. And that's really what we were trying to do is is if
059you take the numbers that we did, we project them out to when these contracts are going to be bought, this is what we think we're going to be. And my skepticism is and I and I and I understand my skepticism is is it being here three or four years, it was okay. It was material shortages and it was all these other issues that that were causing these price escalations. And now, you know, it's inflation is somehow still being experienced in school construction yet, but it's not really being experienced in other areas of construction. So, and my but my real skepticism is if if I build in the tariff into this price setting the GMV and it never materializes, I'm not going to see it. Somehow that's going to get absorbed in the project. That that's
060what my concern is is for the district. Well, I think two things. We've not bid this yet. So when we send this to the street, you guys are going to see every bit that we that we that we take of that day and then we're going to understand our number at that at that time. I feel like if I came in here and I told you, Mr. Wester, I can build that thing for $48 million today and we got bid on bid day and I was wrong. That's much worse than telling you that I can do it for this and then on bid day it's coming in at $48 million. I think there's there's several opportunities for us to come in here and and impact this number in a positive way with a on bid
061day. We're going to get multiple trade partners. The budgets you guys are looking at, we reached out to one or two people in each trade and ask them to give us budget numbers. It's not a competitive setting. So, when they're giving us their numbers, they're basing it off of I built this school a couple years ago. Here's my cost. I escalated it. Here it is. This is what a lot of these numbers are are driven from in a competitive setting. We're going to work for you guys. And if we get, we're going to look for six hits. And I think that keeps our market honest. And it doesn't allow us to to just rely on somebody that's put an escalation factor in. Two more questions. Who in this process from the architect to the contractor
062who is who in this process is motivated and incentivized to keep our cost down? I think both of us are, but I'll tell you right now, like incentivized like do you make more money if you save us money or do you make more money if we spend more money? We we are a lump sum so it will not affect our fee. Okay. But we're always looking for opportunities to make the budget better with the contract. Is there a way to structure these deals where the the the consultants that we're working with are actually incentivized to save us money? I don't know if their consultants can be incentivized. That that would that would be on their half of it that that I wouldn't be able to speak to. But I can tell you that the the
063the thing that incentivizes us to continue to control these budgets is because we keep getting invited back to this room. Sure. And there there's, you know, the bond that that that's available here and the work that we're chasing is is a if you're not incentivized by that, then you probably aren't going to be incentivized by much. And I just want to and that's why I do value and and one of the reasons I do value what Pog has done for this district is for I don't want to fall in the trap that we just started this meeting with is I want somebody that's going to be accountable to this district for the facilities that we're building. And having that partnership is is gonna I think be potentially potentially be beneficial for the district to say,
064"Hey, if this ain't working at South, if this ain't working at JRE, if this ain't working at the 407 site, we know who it is." And then last thing, $58 million, does that include that $58 million and that $500 a square foot? Are you not counting in that number the site prep cost, earthwork, concrete, the landscaping that was actually absorbed in middle school? That that number is is is it's in those numbers. So the the the budget that we gave included what we could go to the school for what the plan says now but a lot of the site prep a lot of the concrete a lot of the landscaping because it's a combo site was absorbed by the middle school construction cost right so what I'm trying to say is that 58 million if
065we had to pay for the site prep if we had to pay for the concrete if we had to pay for the landscaping that's currently being paid for by MS2 it would actually more. It'd be over 60. So, so we're over we're 20% increase. We did a comparison. Even though even though you've saved 2.5 million on those consists, right? So, so there's another 2.5 million that would be we'd be 60 million. So, for the architects in the room, so we've been told that it's number of manh hours is is what you build upon. It's a prototype school. It's been built. So, There's like an extra 130,000 coming from I am not sure on that B number. Is that Yeah, that's your number. That's our number. So I'd have to verify the number because it it
066is an additional we were had the same fee as what we added J as what we had. No, it's higher. Well, it looks higher. It's higher by I don't think it I'll verify it. Yeah. 150 grand higher. I just want to point out that the construction cost is 52 million. The 58 is the total project. So that includes all the architect, FFN, all the other pieces. I just wanted to clarify that that the construction piece is 52. It is still much more expensive, but it's just the 5. Well, and he did his math on square footage, right? Square foot cost. So it's up at the top. Up at the top is based on the 52 million, not the 58. So square footage doesn't change. That cost is correct. I have two questions. Um, Liz, he
067asked about incentives. We talked about this before, I believe, and I think we're not actually allowed to incentivize them, like we talked about it one time, incentivizing a contractor to say, "Hey, if you come in a million dollars under, we'll split it with kind of thing, right? We save half a million. We give them a true incentive to come in half." I think we talked about this and it's not necessarily legal. We did we have talked about in the past and I think that this would require discussion with our legal counsel to say is there a way to structure it in some form or fashion to incentivize um I don't think we can say we split it with you as much but we'd have to ask what gives the employer that well on municipal contracts
068you guys do municipal contracts too right don't they usually have an incentive to finish early or to finish under budget or both there can be yes and is it typically a percentage of the savings is it. So, it's worth it's worth a discussion because I agree. Um, the other thing I would ask is these you say here at the top that the comparison um on the next on the next page it says that ES4 to ES5 60% docks. So, I know that um you showed that we had I think we value engineered about 4 million out of JRE. Is that right? Uh I don't remember the number. Some number. Yes. We value engineered some when we to to Mr. Sllayton's point, Sam Sllayton, that we put out um it's the same school, right? When we
069put that out to bid in the 60% docs, did we use the initial set of requirements or did we use the the VE set of requirements when we put it out? Yeah, we we used the VE set. So what we did is when we started the the the elementary number five process, we took every RFI, every submitt, every PCR that we did and incorporated that into the set. Uh we did go back through the VE set again just to verify after we've been discussing with Jeff after the 60%. Um there are a handful of items that were project specific to that site and there was a handful of items that are subcontractor driven but uh the vast majority are included in that 60% set. So so like to like to Mr. Western's point two years
070later finished carpentry is up 61%. That it's possible that's not it's impossible. Yeah. We we didn't change the weed. So none of the specs got changed from VE. Oh, we Yeah, we included the VE. Oh, so I know. So E from V ES4 VE to what got sent out to vendors to bid. Nothing changed. Mr. Mr. Can I speak that one one just for one second? The subtle we used on the last school was a challenge for us that has not been provided as our budget. Okay. You're talking I just picked one line. Yes. So, I I'm going to pick another plumbing. How about plumbing? Plumbing. Plumbing's up 70%. There's I'll pee in a bucket. Wow. I will. I mean, that's ridiculous. I agree with you that that is one that that we've reached out
071to multiple more trade partners to get more numbers on. Um, for instance, that we use new plumbing on this side. New plumbing has been awarded a couple of high schools that probably will be an option for this one. They did not provide us a number on at this exercise. So, we reached out to somebody else who probably wasn't dealing with the historical data that some of our trade work, but I do think that's one of the opportunities for some to better I would hope. Yes, sir. Severely hope that's one of the numbers that gets changed dramatically. I can understand HVAC expenses, supplies, things going up, but it's just fun. A few things on the HBAC as is we at JRE we we used a V and an alternate for Terry because I know that's not
072the district's preference. However, we we have them bid the AON units knowing that at bid time if the carrier units are are a benefit to the project, that would definitely be the option that was used. Yeah, I don't I don't know where I know a lot of the schools we did, we've used AON for a long time. I don't think the only place I would say we have a preference for AON is over the gym. Anywhere we have to be humidity controlled would be the only place. the rest of it. Give me a good quality unit that's 30% less all day long. Yes, sir. Um, so I just want to just reiterate. So you guys used the VD specs. Nothing got changed from there to what got correct. Okay. Got a lot of work to
073do. We do. I think one of the ch I just want to leave you with this comment. you know, public education is kind of in somewhat of a crossroads, you know, and it's under attack. Funding is all, you know, people like to there's a war on public ed. And one of the things I commonly hear from the people that attack public ed is that it's the consultants, it's the contractors making hand over fist, but they're just it's really swampy. They're all floating around making a ton of money off public ed and that's why we're struggling down in Austin to get more funding. And I want y'all to be aware of that and it's our role here as best we can. And one of the struggles I want our community is there's, you know, I appreciate
074you showing up in these meetings and taking these hard questions, but we have to ask them. And it's not out of disrespect for you and our part, but we have to ask these questions because this institution is under attack. And this is a lot of money. These are huge escalators that I don't think we're seeing in the real world. And I don't know what the solution is. And I tell people right now, this is what I tell people is if Argal becomes difficult to work with, you just go to some other school district because some other school district may just pay you because everybody's building schools in North Texas. And so, um, that's what I want people to understand what our challenge is in terms of the balance in this. You know, po say it
075again, architects, you know, last few projects have gone well. And I appreciate that. And, you know, if it was my personal life, if I had a good contractor come into my house and do a good project, I'm probably not going out there trying to find the next cheapest guy. I had a good%. But when you go up 70%, you make me go, what are we doing here? And I just need to know you hear you saying, "Hey, I'm I'm doing what I can." Our work isn't done. Okay. We're going to continue to work and I think you guys will will see that come midday because this exercise was put together and there's there's tons of opportunities right there that we are aware of amongst our two teams on on dollars that can be saved. And
076to your point, like I I've worked in Argo since I started working for Corgan and I treat every project like it's like my baby. So I try to like we work very well. I'm glad that Jeff works with us together too because even when we are in construction, we're always looking like maybe the sub center RFI and he says why are we doing it this way? This way is going to be cheaper. And we look at it and we say yeah let's get a credit for it. We're constantly looking on ways of making it more efficient and saving money. It would help me to know that you're doing that. Okay, we can talk in areas where you're doing that to build my confidence that I mean I don't see what's going on behind the scenes.
077You just bring to me the number. Yeah. You don't bring to me where you started and how you whittleled it down. But but but to your point like earlier the GMP said it's set and and this and and yes and to to be fair when we are doing construction that's just in a in a PCI in a form of changing order the same way sometimes some something arise a price increase because we didn't see something or respond the same time sometimes it's the opposite there's something that there's a way of saving money and with spoke and Jeff like they we're always talking about especially with Jeff like I'm we're available 247 for Jeff and if Jeff it's like I have a question how do you bring it this way and we we talk about it
078we try to solve it and we try to save money for the district bring me some good news when you can't share it just because it helps me build confidence that you guys are actually doing not that I I mean it just I just see the whole one number I don't see where it start I'll also say you mentioned that GMP set yes it is But it's also our goal to give you guys as much return on your savings as we possibly can. There's been some some factors in some of these projects that's got as close, but I think we have returned some money in the last couple of projects. And our goal would be that this middle school there's there's there's some knowledge there. That's our goal. That's our hope every time. Appreciate that.
0795:00. Does anyone else have anything? Okay. 5:05 p.m. Thank you.