KHS project has $1.7M for unexpected costs

KINGSTON, N.Y. » School district officials say the second phase of the $137.5 million Kingston High School renovation and expansion project has $1.7 million remaining in a contingency account to cover any unexpected costs.

At a Board of Education meeting Wednesday, district Buildings and Grounds Director Thomas Clapper said $2.12 million in contingency expenses were covered in the first phase of work, which consisted of about $80 million in expenditures.

“Even though we’ve spent more than half the contingency, we’re still ahead because we’ve done more than half the work, and work that is going to burn up the contingency has already been done,” he said.

“Things like rock removal and finding out what we don’t know about the foundation at MJM (the former Myron J. Michael Junior High School building) were the biggest unknowns, and now they’re done,” Clapper said. “So now we’re down to the renovations at the main [high school] building ... and we know what we have in main.”

Clapper cautioned, though, that all renovation projects for buildings that are more than 100 years

old have something unexpected arise. But it is easier to forecast expenses for an existing structure than know what will be encountered when putting up a new structure, he said.

“To say that we’re going to spend a particular

amount on rock removal contingency is a difficult task,” he said. “So they can take an educated guess at it and they come up with a percentage (of the cost for the project) that makes up the contingency amount.”

Clapper said the project has come in close to the 317,000 square feet that was planned when officials sought voter approval in December 2013.

Work in the first phase has included renovations of the Kate Walton Field, demolition of the former Myron J. Michael building, the addition of two wings to the Salzmann Building, renovating the Salzmann building, and developing a new entrance to the high school. Use of new academic areas began in the fall of the 2016, and full use of all additions is expected to begin this

coming September.

“The entire academic core is complete now,” Clapper said.

The main building, which faces Broadway in Midtown Kingston, will be renovated in a second phase of the project, but district officials are uncertain when that will begin because state Education Department approval is needed to receive aid ahead of schedule.