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School districts across the Southwest are turning to alternative
delivery methods to build schools, with construction manager
at-risk contracts proving very popular to both district officials
and contractors.
Both Nevada and Arizona have embraced the alternative delivery
methods, while New Mexico school officials appear to be mulling
the concepts.
"Since the introduction of construction manager at-risk
two years ago, 85 percent of the school work is cm at-risk,"
said Dan Withers, president of Phoenix-based DL Withers Construction.
"It's just been a real teamwork approach to deliver projects
on time and in budget."
Arizona school districts are in various stages of planning
and construction on an estimated $3.9 billion in school construction,
with the Phoenix Union High School District alone looking
at $250 million in work ranging from three new high schools
to deficiency corrections. The funding is dependent on a bond
election this month.
The Arizona School Facilities Board announced in July that
the majority of the state's school deficiency correction projects
are under construction or complete, meeting the statutory
June 30, 2003 deadline. Voters approved spending more than
$2 billion to improve school conditions across the state.
Many of the projects were delivered using a job order contracting
method
The new delivery method, which was passed by the Arizona State
Legislature in 2000, creates a simplified process and a level
playing field for owners and contractors, allowing government,
large and small entities greater scales of economy and simplified
contracting.
Job Order Contracting (JOC), sometimes called Delivery Order
Contracting (DOC) or Indefinite Delivery - Indefinite Quantity
(IDIQ), is a construction procurement/delivery method that
utilizes one contract as an umbrella under which many separate
jobs are completed.
"From a contractor's point of view, job order contracting
allows them to respond to one solicitation that gives them
the potential to work for 700 agencies around the state of
Arizona," said Tom Peeler, purchasing director for the
Mojave Educational Service Cooperative.
"If you look at it from the owner's point of view, we
have already done the bidding process for them, so they don't
have to start a whole separate process. Some school districts
have as few as 60 students and one person runs the whole show.
They don't have time to get into a complicated procurement
process."
Growth Drives Nevada Schools
The Clark County School District in Las Vegas has opened at
least 10 new schools annually for the past three years - a staggering
number for any other region. On Aug. 25, it unveiled 12 new
campuses, 10 of which opened one-to-two years early due of booming
enrollment.
Clark County has the nation's sixth-largest school district
with 263,571 students. The new schools are part of a $3.5 billion,
10-year construction bond backed by voters in 1998. Financed
by visitor and property taxes, the bond program calls for 88
new schools, plus upgrades to existing facilities, by 2008.
School officials, however, say they'll need at least 48 additional
campuses by then, and will likely ask voters in 2006 to approve
a new bond issue to fund new construction. Based on enrollment
projections, Clark County will have run out of elementary school
classroom seats by the start of the 2008-09 academic year, even
if all of the campuses are on year-round schedules.
If additional campuses beyond those planned for under the construction
plan aren't ready by 2008, some district schools will have to
move to double sessions. Student enrollment has outpaced the
district's need for new schools, with the district seeing an
average increase of about 6 percent every year, district officials
said.
In the next decade, the district expects to see the student
enrollment increase by 51 percent to 405,610 students in the
2012-13 school year. But it's not just enrollment growth driving
the need for more schools and funds, there is also pressure
to keep class sizes small and fix aging campuses.
The Washoe County School District in Reno has experienced similar
growth woes with 58,908 students enrolled at 83 facilities last
year, an increase of 3,235 from 2000. And enrollment is expected
to grow by approximately 20,000 students over the next 10 years.
In November 2002, voters approved a $309 million, five-year
school construction bond rollover program financed by property
taxes. The program calls for renovations to schools older than
10 years (the average Washoe County school is 31 years old),
plus construction of three new middle schools, three new elementary
schools and additions to three high schools. The bond work additionally
entails the installation of a modern technology and communication
system, purchase of land and water rights for new schools and
the phase two completion of the new Incline Elementary School.
School Work Salvationfor N.M. Contractors
A lagging economy and a lack of private work means more contractors
are competing for school work in New Mexico, with $1.185 billion
in work spread out across the state.
New Mexico voters recently approved the establishment of a
cabinet level education secretary, but as of press time, a
resolution to draw more revenue from the state trust fund
was undecided.
The amendment would authorize higher rates of withdrawal from
the market value of the $6.8 billion Land Grant Permanent
Fund, which includes the Permanent Schools Fund. Approving
the amendment would mean an additional $78 million in 2005
for New Mexico schools. The state now taps 4.7 percent of
the fund's five-year average market value.
If Amendment 2 passes, that percentage increases to 5.8 percent
for eight years. The distribution drops to 5.5 for four years
after that and drops to 5 percent thereafter.
During the 12 years of the new percentages, schools would
receive about $778 million more, according to estimates from
the Legislative Council.
Many communities across the state have also passed bond issues
to improve and build more schools.
"From what we can tell, school construction in New Mexico
is fairly healthy with lots of architectural design work in
the K-12 market," said Steve Perich, a principal with
Albuquerque architects Dekker/Perich/Sabbatini. "The
economic cycle is different here. We didn't participate as
robustly in growth, but at the same time, New Mexico didn't
have a downfall."
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