The top three bidders are here tonight to give further information about their bids and what they plan to do with the property if they are awarded the bid.

Because of continued work delays the board declared in April 2005 that the work had been abandoned. It then fell to the bonding company to fulfill the obligations of the contractor. We now have an estimate from another roofing company for completion of the two projects. Together the two projects will cost $141,861; that is the amount that was withheld from the payment for the original work.

Over the course of the past 12 months the operations division of the district has studied utility costs at all sites. Because those costs were comparatively much higher at Old Union Elementary, Eubanks Intermediate and Dawson Middle, we enlisted the assistance of the engineering firm of Estes-McClure to develop possible solutions to this problem. Using the data that was collected, we developed a recommendation for air balancing and reconfiguring the hot water system and advertised for bids.

The mechanical work will be under warranty for one year. I feel confident this group is going to work with us until we get the air balance to its most efficient point.

Successful completion of the project should have a significant impact on utility costs for these two schools and the potential exists for recovering the cost of the project in our operating budget in a comparatively short period of time. The total amount saved at these two locations in one year should exceed $200,000.

It would have triggered an immediate attempt to gather every piece of information we could about the plan, the targets.