Bonds Bear Fruit

By Brad Kadrich / Hometownlife.com

As the bids for project after project included in the $109 million bond issue approved by voters in 2004 went out, then came in on time and under budget, Plymouth-Canton school officials saw they were saving millions of dollars.

Faced with a quandary - a shrinking revenue stream tightening the budget vs. significant infrastucture needs around the district - administrators and school board members made the decision to pour the savings back into the schools, making renovations on every district building constructed before 2000.

As a result, district officials believe they've positioned the district for a solid foundation for the next 15-20 years.

“We've been fortunate ... we've been able to take advantage of some favorable bidding,” said assistant superintendent Ken Jacobs, who estimated the bond work was done some 18 months early and some $8 or $9 million under budget. “We commit very few dollars from the general fund budget to infrastructure ... we wanted to address all our infrastructure needs.”

Jacobs believes the district has done that. Every building in the district built before 2000 had some sort of work done. Not all of it - mechanical work, doors, roofs, windows, boilers, paving, plumbing - was sexy, but all of it was necessary, he said.

Workman Elementary School was the only new building constructed with the bond proceeds. And enrollment at the school, located at Cherry Hill and Denton in Canton, has proven that was a need more than a want.
“We put the building where the enrollment was coming,” Jacobs said. “It's worked out that way in that there are 700 students in that building.”

While Jacobs has shepherded the projects from the district's end, he spreads the credit for the success of the bond projects around. The credit goes largely, according to Jacobs, to the district's construction manager, McCarthy & Smith, and its architect, TMP.

McCarthy & Smith was brought on board in September 1998 to build Discovery Middle School. As the district began to assess its needs, TMP was brought in in 2000. Both firms do substantial work with school districts, an expertise Plymouth-Canton officials have found valuable.

“They have a unique way of developing a following of construction crews,” Jacbos said of McCarthy & Smith. “The contractors who have bid on the work have been very good.”

The team has run into a few problems. There were problems with concrete being used at West Middle School, and with the materials used to resurface the administration building on Harvey.

The weather hasn't always cooperated, either. As crews were building the new bus turnaround at Gallimore Elementary, heavy rains turned the site into what officials not-so-lovingly called “Lake Gallimore.”

“We've been able to report primarily good news,” McCarthy & Smith president Bill McCarthy said. “Many of the projects had some site related issues. Throw in a wet August, and it got a little exciting.”

The team's relationship with the district's Board of Education also helped facilitate a lot of the effort. McCarthy, senior project manager Doug Underwood and TMP's John Reibe made frequent presentations to the board throughout the process, which has seen some 25 bid packages that included as many as 100 separate projects.

“We've kept all the good and not-so-good news out in front of the board was important,” McCarthy said. “We need to be accountable for the work.”

In addition to getting the work done on time and under budget, the 2004 bond projects have had an effect on the economy. According to numbers put together by McCarthy & Smith, 2004 bond projects generated more than 70,000 mand-days and more than 563,000 hours of work between April 2005 and October 2009. The work kept nearly 60 people per day working.

While it's tough to say how much money such work generated, McCarthy & Smith officials say it was a lot.

“It's kind of hard to put a number on it,” McCarthy & Smith's Underwood said. “But you'd come up with a significant dollar figure.”

As the projects continued to get done under budget, administrators began struggling with the question of whether to put the savings toward alleviating the budget problems or fixing things they felt needed fixing.

Jacobs said ultimately the decision came down to balancing the two.

“The intent of the bond was to do infrastructure work ... we took care of needs that should take us 15-20 years out,” Jacobs said. “We know, given the economy, we're not going to go out for (another) bond for quite awhile. It was important to carve out some funds.”

To a board that has cut some $20 million from its budget over the last eight years, it was important to get that work done under the bond, saving general fund balances for actual education.

“It's everything to us as a struggling district,” said Board of Education President Steven Sneideman. “Anything we could save under the bond leaves that much more we can put into the classroom.”