Maysville's school district cleared another hurdle this week on a project to replace their cinder running track with a new five-lane all-weather track.
The Maysville Board of Education voted during their regular meeting Monday night to accept a $466,035 bid from Vibra-Whirl Sports of Panhandle, Texas, to complete the project. The new track is part of a $600,000 bond issue passed by Maysville voters last fall.
The district received three bids on the project, all of which were higher than the estimated cost of $425,000 the district was given last spring due to rising costs of materials over the last year.
The bid from Vibra-Whirl Sports was not the lowest bid but did include a $20,000 allowance for unforeseen expenses that might arise during the project, as requested in the bid specification packet. If the allowance is not needed, those funds will be credited back to the district. A bid from Sun Construction appeared to be $4,000 less than the Vibra-Whirl bid but did not include the requested allowance, which would need to be added in if the bid were accepted. Because of that, the architecture firm handling the project for the district recommended the board accept Vibra-Whirl’s bid as the “lowest and best bid as the “lowest and best bid.”
The bid accepted by the board includes $28,815 for subgrade soil stabilization under the new track, if needed. The necessity of that will be determined by density testing conducted by the engineers once the cinder track surface has been removed. If stabilization is not needed, or is only needed in specific sections, the district will be able to request a refund of the remainder of those funds, according to the architect.
Maysville’s current cinder track is thought to be one of the few remaining in the state that is still in regular use. The new track will use same basic footprint but will add a fifth lane on the inside of the track and will extend a little further to the south to compensate for lane length adjustment required by the addition of a lane.
The project is expected to get underway in mid-March, after Maysville hosts its last track meet of the season. Construction is expected to take about 75 days to complete.
Maysville Supt. Shelly Beach provided the board with an update on the remaining bond projects, saying new band uniforms are anticipated to arrive in early July. Beach said there has been some delay due to a shortage of white fabric, and the company is waiting for all the material to be delivered before beginning fabrication to ensure there aren’t any differences in hue.
Beach told the board now that the bids on the track project were in and they had a better idea of what funds they have to work with, she would start crunching numbers and begin working on bid packets for bathroom renovations planned across the district and bring that project back before the board at March’s meeting.
Beach said after that they can turn to replacing the scoreboards at the football field, with the hope of getting that squared away before football season begins in the fall.
During Monday’s meeting the board also:
•approved renewing contracts of Elementary Principal John Edwards and Secondary Principal Krysti Kesler for the 2022- 2023 school year;
•approved a proposed school calendar for the 2022-2023 school year, and specified that the school year will continue to consist of 1080 hours or 165 days;
•approved revisions to the district’s “Board Policy FE” regarding student transfers to better align with the state’s new open transfer policy and clarifications to the appeal process for transfers that are denied.
