Mike Richie, District Administrator
Spirit Article, May 2023
Though it was a little late in coming, the unseasonably warm weather that arrived early April helped us break ground and stay on schedule with our exciting Falcon STEAM construction project, which is now front and center to area residents. Behind the scenes, our Board of Education has been working overtime in direct communication with our partners at Hoffman Planning, Design & Construction Inc. to assess the incoming bids vs. budget, as well as the inevitable adjustments in a project of this size that need to be made along the way.
As many of you may know, the project was sent out to bid in late December 2022. We received good coverage when bids came in on January 19, 2023, unfortunately, despite planned-for inflationary pressure, bids still came in over budget. We’ve all seen inflation across so many product categories and industries, and construction has been particularly affected.
That said, the team has done a fantastic job engineering the project when we were initially $3.3 million over budget in mid-January. I’m happy to report that Falcon STEAM is on budget and on time with no significant impacts to the educational scope of the project. Here’s some background as to how we’ve been able to tackle the problem and find a solution while working with Hoffman.
The Hoffman team collaborated with the district to compile a list of value engineering ideas which all totaled ended up a bit more than $5 million against the $3.3 million that exceeded budget. That list was broken down into two categories, one consisting of minimal scope impact items, and the other containing scope impact items. The minimal scope impact items were put together to help reduce the budget without having a major educational impact. The scope impact items would be much more difficult to cut and needed additional conversation. Throughout this value engineering process and the entire design phase of the project, the district's goal has been to maximize educational scope as much as possible. This had been a point of emphasis in all of the district’s surveys and public forums conducted with district residents in the lead-up to the April 2022 referendum.
With the approved list of value engineering items from the district, Hoffman went out to re-bid in February. In March, Hoffman was able to share with the district that we are on budget. With a good group of approved contractors, we broke ground the week of March 27th (spring break) and are tracking on schedule.
This Falcon STEAM project, as approved by more than 60 percent of district voters, is critically important to the future of the Tomorrow River School District as we compete in a very competitive educational market to continue to attract families and students to our area and our school. The evidence about the importance of technical education and the trends toward careers in the trades is indisputable. Further, our new agricultural sciences area will do a much better job serving local interests while ensuring the rich farming tradition has a strong future here in Portage County and the Central Wisconsin region. Math, science and the arts are directly served with significant improvements as we strive to be the very best K-12 academic institution in the region.
We are blessed with exceptional educators, administrators and staff, as well as a diligent and hard-working Board of Education here at TRSD. With the completion of this construction project, we will also have exceptional, first-class facilities both academically and athletically. Our school slogan is “Fly Like a Falcon” for good reason. Thank you to all district residents for your support and trust. We will share construction updates as we have news to share. Until then, enjoy the spring!