MONROE — The School District of Monroe Board of Education made a handful of decisions that should smoothly move the new high school project forward along its projected timeline.
The BOE approved the contracts of CG Schmidt, Plunkett Raysich Architects (PRA), Fehr Graham and CGC Incorporated for their roles in the high school and Abraham Lincoln project.
CG Schmidt will act as the construction manager for 1.5% of the cost of construction. Any savings of the project, projected to be about $93.3 million, will go back to the district. CG Schmidt has said in the past public meetings with the district that it in the past decade has not gone over budget, and on many occasions finished a project under budget.
PRA will take the lead on the architecture and design at a cost of 5% construction contingency prework of $9,600, and then of fixed fees of a base of $3.6 million for the high school and $240,000 for Abraham Lincoln for the design services.
CGC Incorporated, a Madison-based firm with over 30 years of experience, was recommended by CG Schmidt and will provide the geotechnical services at an initial cost of $24,650.
Fehr Graham was chosen for civil engineering services of the project. There were three finalists for general contractor, with two low bids within $300 of each other. The third was “significantly” higher, according to Monroe’s Business Administrator Ron Olson. The board picked Fehr Graham based on their low bid, quality and experience of prior projects, experience with building athletic fields, and its local presence with an office in Monroe. The cost to the district will be about $388,000, plus an extra $50,000 for an anticipated traffic study.
Jesse Duff of Fehr Graham said the process of annexing the land from the Town of Monroe into the City of Monroe is ready to begin. The township board, city council and Green County Board will all be involved through the process.
As the project moves forward, the district will continue to keep its website and social media pages updated in order to keep the public informed.
LAUNCH Partnership Project
Cara Carper, school to work coordinator, and Olivia Otte, Green County Development Corporation (GCDC) executive director, gave further information on the new join LAUNCH project for MHS students. The project is in coordination with the district, GCDC, SSM Monroe and Blackhawk Tech, and will see MHS students become trained to and ready to renovate a house currently owned by SSM Monroe.
The ownership of the home is being transferred to GCDC, and, once completed, will be sold next year, with the profits going toward the funding of next year’s project. The partnership is seen as a re-imagined and updated version of the former Capstone project the district used to provide to a select group of senior technology education students.
“The original Capstone project had new builds, and it would be excellent if we could get to that level again, but we think this is a really great first step to initiate the program with a little different of a taste,” Otte said.
“The house is a little dated, but otherwise in really great condition,” Otte said. “We’re really, really lucky that SSM is allowing us to have this house.”
The two-bedroom, one bathroom home is a modern, mid-century house with an attached garage. It is one story and has a dry basement.
“It needs some work, definitely, but it is a very nice space — good bones,” Carper said, adding that she and Otte were able to view it for the first time within the week prior.
Otte said she is still in the fundraising phase, and has been meeting with a lot of local businesses and financial institutions in order to raise funds to pay for the materials. She hopes to secure a part-time instructor that will be housed under GCDC to come in and act like a general contractor for that project.
“We’ve raised about $40,000 already, and I am still waiting to hear back from a number of businesses, and I’ve also written a couple of grants on behalf of this project,” Otte said. “My goal is to get to $100,000, which I think is on the high end, but I really want to set us and the school district up for the future, also. As Cara mentioned, we’d really like to see this project grow.”
Otte and GCDC represent the entire county, not just Monroe, and she said she’d like to see some of that growth branch out to some of the other area districts. In fact, she’s already been contacted by some that could be interested.
Annual reports
Elsewhere at the meeting, Joe Monroe, the Pupil Services Director, gave an update on a variety of student metrics and their trends over the past few years. Those included mental health survey information and incidents that involved restraint and/or discipline of students across the district.
Dana Kundert, district nurse, updated the board on health trends and student absences over the past couple of years in her annual report.
The board also approved changes to the health insurance options made available to its staff.
Agreed with the proposed 2023-23 base wage agreement with MEA.
