OXFORD – Residents of the Oxford Academy and Central School District may be heading back to the polls this fall for a special capital project vote.
“We can go to the public with a vote (by) mid-November,” reported Oxford Superintendent Randy Squier, at a joint meeting of the district’s board of education and facility advisory committee held Monday night. At the meeting, school leaders agreed to proceed with the Phase II building project, which will be both larger in scale and would carry a larger price tag than the $4.65 million Phase I project approved by voters last year. The project’s design documents are currently before the New York State Education Department for review.
According to Bernie Brown of the Bernier Carr Group, the district’s architectural and engineering firm, he has already met with a representative from SED to discuss what would and would not be aided by the agency in the secondary project.
“If it’s inside the existing building, it will be aided,” summarized Brown, who said the state would not consider footing the bill for any additions. As a result, several items have been struck from the district’s wish list – including a proposed expansion of the Middle School gym, the addition of an exterior corridor to access that facility and the idea of adding a second level to the school’s multipurpose room.
“They can’t see a need for the space,” he explained.
Brown presented the board with a list of items which the state did consider aidable, as well as order of magnitude cost estimates for each. The draft version of the project’s scope of work included 38 items, and totaled just over $10.5 million.
Administrators and board members quickly moved to strike some items from the list, while at the same time adding several others.
At the prompting of Principal Kathleen Hansen and Athletic Director Tim Davis, line items related to installation of a playground at the Middle School and sitework related to the playing fields behind the school were removed. A proposed renovation of the building’s home and career room was also eliminated.
“It’s really a beautiful room right now,” Hansen explained.
Davis also asked that a proposed asphalt walkway between the High School and adjacent tennis courts, estimated at a cost of $88,200, be crossed off the list. He explained the grassy area was used as a practice field.
BCG was asked to provide additional estimates for several items, including installation of wireless equipment in the Middle School and a plan for relocating the district offices to the Primary School building.
Director of Special Instruction Dawn Hover asked that her department be part of that relocation.
“(We) should be a part of the district offices,” she said.
Construction of a separate bus garage, one of the items on the wish list, was also discussed. BCG’s Pam Beyor recommended that construction of such a facility be done as a separate, stand alone project, separate from the other two projects.
“Financially, I think it’s going to be so much more straight forward,” she said, explaining that the transportation facility is not eligible for the EXCEL aid the district is planning to use to cover the local share of the other projects.
According to the proposed timeline, the next step in the process is another meeting of the board and facility advisory committee on Sept. 13 to finalize the scope of work for the project and hear from the district’s financial advisors, Fiscal Advisors. By Sept. 27, the board will need to set a date for the vote, with public information sessions scheduled between the beginning of October and early November.
If the project was approved by voters, the design phase would begin in December with the documents submitted to SED by September of 2011. If it received the stamp of approval from the state, bidding would take place in spring of 2012, and construction would commence in July of that year.