By Megan Kelley
Editor
mkelley@mihomepaper.com
INDEPENDENCE TWP. — At its meeting on April 14, the Clarkston Community Schools Board of Education approved some projects tied to the district 2022 bond as well as authorized the purchase of four 77-passenger school buses.
First, the board unanimously approved the purchase of large venue audio/visual systems at Clarkston Junior High School that include advanced lighting and sound to complete the large venue multimedia systems proposal at the junior high in the amount of $179,000 with a 10% construction contingency in the amount of $17,900 for a total cost of $196,900.
“The large venue AV (Audio Visual) is the main gymnasium. We have the fitness room – that’s in phase two, as well as the Aux gym,” said Joe Brenton, Project Manager for AUCH Construction. “That involves the speakers, projectors and all the control systems for those areas. This is the procurement and install of that. So, this first phase will be the main gym and then next phase will be the Aux gym and fitness room getting these similar components. We bought it in one batch so everything will be the same when we introduce the staff to the materials.”
Next, the board unanimously approved two change orders for bond work at CJHS.
The first change order includes a revised water main and sanitary sewer service removal, additional sanitary pipe and structures, redirect of water main at Middle Lake to account for conflict with storm structures and updates to the Storm Trap detention systems in the amount of $156,392.
The second change order includes labor and material for revised bracing details at the classroom partition steel, revised bearing plate and column sizes, added supports for roof openings and added screen wall at rooftop mechanical unit locations in the amount of $138,597.
Lastly, the board unanimously authorized the purchase of four new 77-passenger school buses in the amount of $585,040.
Assistant Superintendent of Administrative Services John Lucido spoke of the need for these additional buses.
“There’s a number of times where we’re not able to transport for athletics or for field trips and this will give us the amount of buses that we need so we won’t have to borrow. Sometimes we borrow from Holly, they’ve been a good partner to us, but that’s not always feasible,” Lucido said.
Trustee Amanda Love raised concerns about the cost and asked if four was a necessary number of buses the district needs.
“We spent a lot of time evaluating this. We feel like this is where we need to be to be efficient. There won’t be buses sitting there with this and we won’t have to make any cuts in any other areas from the general fund to accommodate this,” said Lucido. “We’re looking at the budget right now, this just the season that we’re in right now, for the totality and we think we can definitely absorb this. There’s definitely a gap right now in the services we’re providing to our families with transportation and we feel this would fix that.”
The district is expected to purchase the buses in June.