According to Superintendent Richard Erickson, two bids were awarded on Thursday, and one of them was substantially under budget.

King Construction was awarded a contract for grading work at the school site, which is southeast of the intersection of Pleasant and Washington. King bid $396,374 on a project that was budgeted at $393,958.

The bid was $2,413 over budget.

In a second bid that the school board awarded on Thursday, Meadows Construction, which was bidding on site utilities, submitted a bid of $239,970 on the work that was budgeted at $436,229.

That bid came in $196,259 under budget.

“There was some nice savings there,” Erickson said. “We really needed that.”

So far, the district is nearly on budget on work associated with the $25.3 million bond issue that voters approved in November 2004.

In addition to construction of a new middle school, the bond issue will finance improvements to the existing elementary school, as well as at the junior high and high school, which will become one campus.

The budget for the work was made in April 2004. Erickson noted the difficulty of bidding on a project that was budgeted for 16 months ago.

Last month, bids on utility work on the high school campus came in nearly $140,000 over budget. And Erickson said some smaller bids also came in over budget.

So he was pleased with last week’s bid openings.

“I think we’re real close to budget right now,” he said. “We’re real, real close.”

Erickson said bids for the total middle school construction project will be received on Aug. 25, and he expects the school board to meet and approve those bids soon after that date.