The Harwood Unified Union School District (HUUSD) received a proposal from TruexCullins to begin master planning for the district with the first, a capacity study of the district’s seven campuses, estimated at $48,500.
The board briefly discussed the proposal at is October 23 meeting and will give it more consideration at its next meeting.
“The first step will be a feasibility student that looks at the current footprint of each building, the capacity in each building, how it might be reconfigured for school consolidation and what capital improvement that might require,” explained HUUSD finance director Lisa Estler.
District superintendent Dr. Mike Leichliter said that that first phase of work was important and that the estimate from TruexCullins was realistic.
“It’s important that we have solid data for our planning process and that we can take every possible avenue to explore this,” Leichliter said.
The quote from TruexCullins for a full masterplan comes to over $200,000 and would be broken into phases, but Leichliter said that a full plan is not necessary right now. Given education funding challenges, the board is working on looking at how it might reconfigure schools and school populations. Having detailed information about each buildings’ limitations and capabilities is critical to that process, Leichliter said.
This first phase includes articulating masterplanning goals that include educational, operational, and cost savings goals as well as exploring program space needs at each school and comparing it to state standards. The second part of that first phase is to assess existing capacity, planning options, cost modeling for capital improvements and cost estimates.
The $48,500 cost of this first segment of work breaks down to $28,500 for the work on goals and space needs plus $19,000 to identify cost options. TruexCullins notes in its estimate that its reimbursable expenses will not be billed at the actual rate, but rather at 1.15 times actual charges. Similarly, the professional consultants working on the project whose hourly rates range from $275 (principal) to $80 (intern) will be billed not for their actual time, but at 1.15 times actual hours.
