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School Board Briefs

By Staff | Jul 5, 2006

Security system bids gain school board’s approval

At Thursday night’s Tonganoxie school board meeting, members voted 5-0 to accept a bid for purchase and installation of security systems for the district’s buildings.

The bid was awarded to Wirenuts, Tonganoxie, owned by Kelly Shoemaker and Mike Triplett, which had bid $79,185. The next higher bidder was Global Technologies out of Nixa, Mo., with a bid of $84,438. Three other bids ranged from $116,753 to $133,523.

This was a second bid the district had requested. At the June 12th school board meeting, board members had reviewed the bids.

At that time, of the five bidders listed, Global Technologies’ was the lowest, at $87,049. The bid from Wirenuts came in at $88,300.

At the June 12 meeting, the school district’s technology coordinator, Carl Robison, recommended the district accept the Global Technologies bid, which was the lowest bid.

Robison said Global’s bid package had provided for more technology than the bid specifications had asked for.

Kelly Shoemaker protested, saying his company’s bid followed the bid specifications.

Shoemaker said Wirenuts would have listed the same technology Global was offering, had it been specifically listed in the bid specs. If that had been done, Shoemaker said, the Wirenuts bid would have been lower.

“We bid exactly what it said,” Shoemaker said.

Board member Darlyn Hansen asked if Global met the bid specifications. Robison said Global didn’t stay within the specifications, noting they listed “better equipment.” Board member Ron Moore asked if Wirenuts, the second-lowest bidder, met specifications.

“It is written directly to specs,” Robison answered.

Moore asked Robison if the school district’s bid specifications stated the district had the right to reject all bids if they didn’t meet the bid specifications.

Robison said that was correct.

Superintendent Richard Erickson said, “Let’s reject all bids and put it out to bid again.”

Erickson said the new bid specs should state that only “what absolutely meets the bids will be accepted.”

Moore said the situation was complicated.

“I hate these re-bid things,” Moore said. “But we want to be accurate and we’ve got to make sure the bid specs are done (followed).”

Moore made a motion to reject all bids for the security system. The motion passed unanimously with all seven board members voting in favor of rejecting the bids.

The project then was re-bid, and Wirenuts’ bid was approved last week.

Money transfers OK’d

Board members approved year-end transfers of funds, as recommended by Superintendent Richard Erickson.

“I’m pleased that this year our balances in most funds are either where they were last year or, in the example of the capital outlay fund, they’re up about $130,000 over where they were this time last year,” Erickson said. “If we have to, we can utilize some of that capital outlay budget to finish off our building program.”

Erickson said, with this transfer, the district’s capital outlay fund is $1,045,122. A year ago, the same fund totaled $913,656.

The capital outlay fund can be used to finance improvements to buildings, equipment and construction.

At Thursday’s meeting, board members also agreed to accept the resignation of Scott Smith, vocational counselor at Tonganoxie High School.