Bids will reopen at later date

At Thursday’s meeting, the Benicia school board unanimously voted to reject bids for fire alarm upgrades at two elementary schools and reopen them at a later time.

As part of the Measure S initiative, which was approved by voters in 2014 to provide $49.6 million in bond funding to projects at Benicia Unified School District sites, the district is looking to improve fire alarm systems at all of its sites. The fire alarms at Benicia High and Benicia Middle School have been either replaced or reconditioned, and the next schools slated to receive fire alarm renovations are Mary Farmar and Robert Semple elementary schools.

Roxanne Egan, Measure S bond director, said advertisements for public bids were recently put out and received interest from three contractors. However, only one put forth a bid: Bockmon & Woody, a Stockton-based electric utility company which previously did work on Benicia High and Benicia Middle’s fire alarms.

“The other two contractors have accepted work recently and they didn’t feel they had the work and support to be able to do our work,” Egan said.

However, Egan said the low bids for projects at both schools were more than 40 percent above the engineer’s cost estimate. The contractors were presented with two options: award the bids to each school independently or to open up the bids again at a time when they can be more competitive. This means that the projects would not be completed by summer as originally anticipated, but Egan said contractors could do more work because they have fewer deadlines.

The board was presented with a variety of options: accept the bids as presented, award to one or both schools or reject all bids and reopen the process at a more convenient time. Staff recommended rejecting the bids.

President Diane Ferrucci asked how much the project would be delayed if the bids were rejected.

“These schools really need alarm systems,” she said.

Egan said it was most reasonable to start work by October to be completed in March.

“If contractors have the ability and can start earlier, we’ll say ‘Go,’” she said. “We’re not gonna say you can’t start now, but that would be more of the timeframe that we feel we could get better pricing, that they’ll have more availability. It’s more off-season.”

Trustee Gary Wing asked how students and staff would be impacted. Egan said the construction would be during non-school hours, although the exact times are not specific at this point.

Trustee Stacy Holguin asked what engineers have suggested as reasonable re-estimates. Egan said she contacted Bockmon & Woody personnel about what could be done to reduce costs. They discussed a number of options including leaving repairs to in-house maintenance.

“That just is not a viable answer,” Egan said. “They’re gonna be coming in non-stop, damage things and you’re gonna fix it.”

The other two suggestions were to start right away or have extra time to make adjustments without rebidding. Egan said engineers did not have a built-in allowance for crunch time.

Holguin said the bond measures and Wine Country Fires have resulted in higher costs of labor, so she felt it was necessary to have a reasonable estimate.

“In order to get projects off the ground, we need to go back and re-estimate what is reasonable in the current climate,” she said. “That gives us the opportunity to then see what the impacts are longer term.”

Egan said she would discuss this with the engineers further.

The board voted 4-0— Trustee Celeste Monnette was absent— to reject the bids and reopen at a later time.

In other matters, Educational Service Coordinator Stephanie Rice provided an update on the elementary schools’ benchmark data. Members of Benicia High’s Odyssey of the Mind team presented a skit they had created for the regional competition which allowed them to advance to the state finals, where they placed eighth.

The board will next meet Thursday, May 3.