City officials discuss waiving permit fee to help school

City officials visited with school superintendent Rick Neal Tuesday, March 26, during a City Council Committee of the Whole to learn more about the school district’s request to waive the cost of the building permit. Action on the request is slated for the April 16 City Council meeting.

“We work together on so much, this should be an issue,” Mayor Jackie Crabtree told council members. The request had been presented to the council at the regular council meeting Tuesday, March 19, but there were several questions and concerns raised that the request was tabled.

Neal explained that the bid for the new high school came in about $3.5 million over the budget and that he, the architect and contractor began “value engineering” to decrease costs.

City attorney Shane Perry said: “I think the concern I heard is that if the city waives the fee to help the school, the city wants to ensure that the money wouldn’t go back into the developer’s pocket somehow.”

“Does this change the contract price,” Nathan See, Street Department superintendent, asked Neal.

“Yes, that’s the savings. Every trade, every package, every dollar we added up,” Neal said, reduced the price from $28 million to $24.3 million.

“This was basically brought to us by C.R. Crawford in the value engineering process. They won’t bill us for this,” Neal said.

Council member Cody Keene said he had been assured by Cody Crawford that the money was taken out of the budget.

The mayor said he had heard a concern that this would set a precedent, but said it had been done when the other school buildings were constructed.

Council member Matt Ahart asked: “When other contractors come in, how do we justify this just because it came in over budget?”

Perry said: “This is the school. It’s a governmental partner. They’re asking us to help them meet the budget for building the school. From a legal perspective, I really don’t have any heart burn over it. When you look what happens economically, as housing demands come, more businesses come … when you look long term at what the school will do for the community, it’s good for the community because ultimately it brings in more sales tax.”

Neal explained that in the value engineering process, many packages were renegotiated from the subcontractors and some materials were changed to decrease costs.

City building official Tony Townsend said there is a surcharge required by the state.

“I really feel like this is something we can do,” Crabtree said. “We’ll have to make that decision at the April meeting, as long as nothing is going back to the builder or architect but going back to the school.”