San Marcos CISD Board approves items for administration building project

The San Marcos Consolidated ISD Board of Trustees approved multiple items regarding the district’s administration building project during Tuesday’s regular meeting.

The board approved the rank of competitive sealed proposals for the administration building project.

SMCISD’s administration began accepting competitive sealed proposals for the new administration office project on Jan. 4. An administration committee independently evaluated and ranked each proposal.

SMCISD received proposals from Noble General Contractors LLC, DL Bandy, Tegrity Contractors, Structure Tone Southwest, Structura Inc., AR6 Construction and Engineering and All Pro General Construction.

The administration committee ultimately ranked Noble General Contractors, LLC the highest.

Trustee Anne Halsey raised concerns about the cost of the bid, noting that Noble’s bid was substantially lower than the other contractors. Noble’s bid came in at $7,411,100, while four of the contractors placed bids at $10 million or more. The second lowest bid came from DL Bandy at $8,263,397.

Mike Doyle, SMCISD Director of State and Federal Programs, said the district is expecting the cost of the project to be the price Noble proposed.

The rank of competitive sealed proposals was approved unanimously. But the approval of a construction contract with Noble General Contractors LLC for the ACC building, which is anticipated to be the new administration office, received push back.

Trustee Brian Shanks said he had an issue with spending general funds for the administration building rather than allocating the money to “directly impact instruction by hiring more teachers.”

“I know this was approved before I was on the board, but moving forward our schools are struggling, we’ve not addressed the lost time due to covid that our students weren’t in classrooms and we could be using the $6.5 million [from the general fund] to address and help our students and put this construction on the bond with the rest of the campus constructions,” Shanks said.

Halsey, again, addressed concerns regarding the cost Noble proposed for the contract.

“I think that this is the beginning of what we’re going to be spending on this project,” Halsey said. “I too share my colleagues' feeling that we should hold off and put this up to the voters for an election.”

The board approved the contract with Noble, 5-2, with Shanks and Halsey voting against.

The board also approved a contractor and a contract for the asbestos abatement at the ACC Building. Construction Consulting 3, Inc. was approved to provide asbestos abatement.