Highland gets “great bids” for projects, bond sale

By Mary Zielinski
“We are very happy,” Mike Roberts, Highland School Board president said Thursday, April 16, of bids for the district’s major school improvements project and the bond sale to finance it.
The project bids, opened at 2 p.m. Tuesday, came in well below estimate with the low bid for middle/high school additions at $2,803,871 from Bi-State Construction of Burlington, $716,606 below the $3,520,477 estimate. The bid includes the alternate for the middle school lockers rooms, estimated at $230,000.
Low bid for the remodeling of the stage in the Ainsworth Elementary School gym into classrooms was $102,000 from SG Construction, also of Burlington. Original estimate for that project was $75,105. However, it is more than off set by the electric utility upgrade low bid of $88,030 from Mohrfeld of Fort Madison, just slightly more than half of the $167,250 estimate.
The district’s roll continued Thursday when bids were taken for the sale of revenue bonds at noon. Low bid was Northland Securities of Minneapolis, Minnesota with a 5.17 rate. Just a week prior low rate was 5.75.
“For revenue bonds that is a good rate,” said Roberts. He said that a pre-construction meeting will be held later this month, and actual work should start in May.
The board formally accepted the bids and awarded contracts at its 6:30 p.m.meeting Thursday.
No plans were announced for a formal groundbreaking, but Roberts said, “We might do something.”
Among those who will work on the project are the district’s Athletic Boosters who obtained a $200,000 grant from the Washington County Riverboat Foundation (WCRF) to help finance an initial wrestling room addition to the high school. The Boosters are committed not only to fundraising but also to doing some of the physical work on the addition.
Financing for the bonds and debt costs is from the state’s one-cent school local option sales tax, a move that has permitted the district to undertake the project, that started five years ago, without raising district taxes.
There was a total of 10 bidders.