Bellwood-Antis school board officials decided yesterday that a vote is needed to go ahead with plans to put $1.3 million worth of renovations into the school auditorium.
\nAt the school board work session meeting held yesterday, the board heard once again from Rick Witt, an architect from L.R. Kimball & Associates Inc., who outlined the new additions to the plan, which has grown from a $554,242.50 project in November to a $1.3 million plan here in February.
\n\u201cAs the project has grown in scale, it has also grown in complexity,\u201d said Witt at the December meeting. \u201cAs we walked through the auditorium, we noted the additions needed to be completed to make the area safer. This drove up the costs.\u201d
\nAccording to the district superintendent, Rodney Kuhns, board members inspected the area and decided that simple renovations weren\u2019t the only things needed to bring the auditorium to a safe standard. The information gathered was then submitted to Witt, who in turn, inspected the area again and proposed the revised cost estimate to the board.
\nOfficials were hoping for a cost estimate to be presented at the January meeting, but Kuhns said Witt was not fully prepared with all the numbers necessary for a vote.
\nNow, according to the board\u2019s Vice-President Donna Tyler, the budget is resting at $1,333,343.
\n\u201cThere were no problems from any of the board members concerning this decision,\u201d said Tyler this morning. \u201cIt\u2019s a necessary project that we want to see get going as soon as possible.\u201d
\nAccording to Kuhns, the $1,333,343 estimate is not set in stone.
\n\u201cNow that number is a little high and we\u2019re expecting that a good number of items in the projected budget will come in under what\u2019s outlined here,\u201d said Kuhns.
\nAccording to Witt, changes to the preliminary plan included adding new doors at the rear of the facility, adding new technology to both the stage and auditorium areas, removal of asbestos from the stage area, and new construction and developing layout plans for general lighting and sound.
\nBoard members have also said the auditorium is in dire need of a new rigging system. The current system was designed and built in the 1930s and is a fixture in the building. Officials hope a new, mobile rigging fixture would allow stage crews to change stage lighting and hanging props without using a ladder.
\nThe project is being funded through monies secured from a $2 million bond that was floated earlier this year, said Kuhns. He noted the large expenditure does not affect tax payers because the bond was acquired at such a low-interest rate.
\nNearly a quarter of that bond amount has already been spent on property purchased and another $119,000 of that funding is pending for other purposes \u2013 leaving a balance of about $1.39 million.
\nTyler said the board is expected to adopt a preliminary budget at the next meeting, scheduled for Jan. 11 in the cafeteria of the middle\/high school.
\n\u201cThis budget, of course, will be tentative,\u201d said Kuhns. \u201cAs I stated earlier, I would hope that it\u2019s finished under budget, but there are so many things we have to put a price on now to get the project going, that may change when it comes time to begin the project.\u201d
\nAccording to Kuhns, if the board adopts the tentative budget next week, further planning can be done and the bids can go out as early as July. He hopes the work could be completed in the summer when students are not in classes.
\nIn other business, the board discussed the green space area between the high school and Myers Elementary School. This is an all-purpose field used by a number of different extra-curricular groups and standard classrooms.
\nOfficials have discovered that over the years, wear and tear on the field from use, parking and weather, has made the field unsafe for kids to be utilizing.
\nDiscussions over the last few months amongst board members centered on how best to take care of the problem \u2013 some want to hire professional help, while others would like to see the board use local resources.
\nTyler said at last evening\u2019s meeting, officials decided to have a few people and organizations, at no cost, assess the property and develop a plan of needed work that\u2019s required to make the green space safe again. A report should be offered at the March meeting, said Tyler.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Bellwood-Antis school board officials decided yesterday that a vote is needed to go ahead with plans to put $1.3 million worth of renovations into the school auditorium. At the school board work session meeting held yesterday, the board heard once again from Rick Witt, an architect from L.R. Kimball & Associates Inc., who outlined the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-47305","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news-in-the-tyrone-pennsylvania-area"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47305","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=47305"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47305\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=47305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=47305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=47305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}