SALEM TOWNSHIP – SAD 58 voters will decide on Tuesday, Nov 8, whether to approve spending an additional $150,000 on the addition to Stratton School that is already under way.
Plans to add classroom space to the school have been in the works since last year, and the district chose Lewiston’s R&R Construction to do the project in early September. At that time, Superintendent Quenten Clark told board members that the project was expected to stay within the $950,000 budget set in May.
The district’s assumptions changed after learning that construction prices were skyrocketing nationwide in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Clark told board members that “bids usually come in high” for school construction projects, and that in order to stay within budget, district officials normally negotiate project specifics, removing plans for additional office space or storage rooms until an agreement is reached.
This strategy proved ineffective when Clark met with R&R officials just after Hurricane Katrina hit, Clark said, and he asked the SAD 58 board of directors to approve spending an additional $150,000 to cover the costs. The board approved his request in late September and will take the matter to voters at Tuesday’s referendum.
Some area residents have expressed concerns about the construction’s timing, wondering why the district has not decided to simply hold off on construction until prices fall, Clark said.
He said he supports immediate construction because he believes building an addition now will save SAD 58 money. “There’s a state program where if you replace” portable classrooms with fixed ones, “you get the money you pay in rent for 10 years to apply toward permanent construction,” he said.
“Because we pay $17,800 a year, we’ll get that money for 10 years.”
If the district puts off replacing the portable classrooms, Clark added, “the program expires, essentially.”
“It doesn’t make any sense to lose that money by putting it off for a couple of years in the hopes that prices would drop,” Clark said.
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