School Board Spends $200,000 in 72 Hours

    In early June the Central Community School Board granted permission to the contractor building the Ninth Grade Academy to use the gravel parking lot on Wax Road as a part of the construction site, leaving CHS Juniors without a place to park this school year.  This past Friday and Monday, some six weeks later, the School Board held two meetings at noon in the Superintendent’s office with only a day’s notice and spent over $200,000 of taxpayer’s money to hurriedly try to fix the problem.
    The School Board Facilities Committee and Superintendent Faulk in a Committee meeting on Friday moved to approve the $200,000 expenditure without even having a public hearing and vote before the full School Board.   Dave Freneaux of Central Speaks questioned during the meeting whether this was even allowed, but the meeting was adjourned, giving a green light to proceed with the $200,000 expenditure.  Shortly after this meeting the decision was made to bring the matter before the full School Board Monday at noon in the second “called special meeting”.
    The Ninth Grade Academy plans and bid specifications were published in March, which has caused citizens to ask why the School Board is only now, three weeks before the start of school, addressing the issue of additional parking.  The rush to add parking before school starts has caused the School Board to issue the job as a “change order” to the building contract, which means it will not go out for competitive public bids which should assure the best price.
    Issuing work as a “change order” and avoiding the process of putting it out for public bids is the same thing that happened only a month ago on the asbestos abatement at the old Middle School site.  The School Board in that case failed to include the old auditorium ceiling in the abatement contract and spent $123,000 in another change order that never went out for competitive bids.