The District 86 Board of Education voted Monday to cancel seven summer-construction bid packages approved by the previous board in April and re-bid the work with a modified project list that does not include main hallway improvements at Hinsdale Central and Hinsdale South.
The board voted 4-3 to cancel the previously approved bids and then 6-1 to re-bid the modified project list. Kay Gallo, Michael Kuhn and Jennifer Planson—three of the four current board members that served on the previous board—voted against cancellation. Only Planson voted “no” on the ensuing re-bid item.
Board President Victor Casini, Ed Corcoran, Claudia Manley and Richard Skoda voted in favor of both items.
The cancellation and re-bid items were recommended by the board’s facilities committee. That committee—made of up chairman Corcoran, Kuhn and Skoda—made the recommendation to pull the hallway improvement project from this summer’s projects so that the cost of improving all of the hallways at both schools at one time, and the potential savings from that approach, can be determined.
“For sure it’s going to be cheaper,” Corcoran said of the larger-scoped project. “When you’re having the mobilization and demobilization for such small projects, your overhead is huge, maybe as much as 30 percent.”
Corcoran said he does believe the hallways need to be improved.
“It’s a question of knowing that and getting the best deal for the taxpayers and doing much more due diligence on what’s best for the students,” Corcoran said.
Kuhn said there’s a “difference in philosophy” between the majority of the last board and that of the current board regarding the summer projects. He said the last board was not thinking about pricing out a larger project that would remodel every hallway at both schools, but doing it “over a period of time as we need to.”
“One’s not right and one’s not wrong, it’s just a different philosophy,” Kuhn said.
Though he doesn’t necessarily think the approach endorsed by the facilities committee is a bad one, Kuhn said, “When you’re criticizing what this board had done back in January, I take a personal offense to that.”
Corcoran has said cancelation fees charged to the district for deferring some projects and rebidding others could total as much as $29,000, of which $17,000 could come from Gilbane, Inc., the district’s general contractor. The district will attempt to negotiate those fees down to a lower amount.
The pulling of the hallway project changed the scope of seven of the eight bid packages approved in April by more than 10 percent, which means the board was obligated to cancel and re-bid the projects. The only bid package that was not changed significantly enough to re-bid was miscellaneous metalwork.
While the hallway project was removed from this summer’s construction docket, there were several projects recommended by the facilities committee added to this summer’s construction slate that were not part of the previous board's packages, including a new gymnasium-entrance overhang, expanded ticket office and new concession area at Central.
The board also voted 5-2 to solicit bids for a safety consultant to study both campuses, another item recommended by the facilities committee. Gallo and Planson voted against the item based on the fact that District 86 has not been declared in violation of any safety standards it is required to adhere to.