THOMASVILLE- Tuesday, June 27, the Thomasville City School Board of Education held their work session and regular meeting in regard to an update on their current construction project and approval of the FY24 Tentative Budget.

During the work session, Connie Avant, coordinator of finance, outlined a financial update for the board as well as the FY23 June purchase orders, FY24 purchase orders and the FY24 tentative budget.

“I’ve enclosed in your packets the tentative budget for FY24,” Avant said. “Nothing has changed since the last called board meeting, except to note that the public hearing dates have been set for July 11 and July 20.”

Other matters discussed during the work session included the FY24 custodial services contract, the 2023-2024 letter of agreement between TCS and the Thomasville Center for the Arts and the 2023-2024 memorandum of understanding between TCS and the Pathways Education Program.

The FY24 school nutrition adult meal price increase was also discussed, outlined by Talzonda Randall, director of school nutrition, to be more equivalent to the state average for lunch and breakfast meal prices.

“Breakfast will be $2.50, it’s currently $2,” Randall said. “Meals for lunch will be $4.50 instead of $4. So, it’s an increase of $0.50 for breakfast and lunch.”

During the regular session, the increased adult meal prices, custodial services contract, the letter of agreement and the letter of memorandum were approved.

Additionally, during the work session, an update on the new school campus construction project was held by Leah Jones from Altman + Barrett and Curt Eckman of Parrish Construction.

Eckman said that after weeks of effort, he’d come to outline the overall timeline and schedule for the project to the board.

“It’s cutting down the overall schedule to 23 months, which is really aggressive,” Eckman said. “However, from our side of the fence, we’re very comfortable with that timeframe and there are going to be a lot of decisions that have to be made and things that have to be done to be able to achieve that and cut that much time off the overall direction.”

Newly appointed Interim Superintendent Dr. Fred Rayfield outlined to the board the current budget issues regarding the construction project.

“I’ve been asked to really get in and study as much as I possibly can and get to you what I consider to be very concrete and transparent numbers,” Rayfield said. “And if I’m being very honest with you, a start date tonight is the smallest of your problems.”

Rayfield described a gap in terms of estimated revenue coming into the project and where they were, as a system with the guaranteed net price, or GMP, as of the meeting.

“The GMP was sent to me, a revised one, by Mr. Eckman and his group this morning, so that new guaranteed maximum price is a result of everything that we have talked about,” he said.

Adding the meeting rooms back to the fieldhouse, Rayfield said, and taking cost-saving measures that were absolutely doable, have still left them at a difficult position.

“We’re still at a $53 million number,” he said. “The total money that you have in hand to do that project right now is $49.8. I can guarantee you that you have that much money. I can’t guarantee you anything past that, unless you make some really difficult monetary decisions.”

He said that left them with a gap of $3.5 million. Although, he added that the gap had been larger a week ago. Rayfield added they had discussed lower prices with the contractor and architect, but the gap was still noticeable.

“That gap was larger than that a week ago,” Rayfield said. “We’re still in a ballpark that is way north of what our guaranteed funds can secure.”

Solutions, he said, included the compressed schedule for construction, which Eckman’s 23 month timeline is an example of.

“We’re out of cost-saving measures other than significantly altering the project,” he said. “That would involve swinging student populations to make buildings available for when they needed them available to make the timeframe work.”

Rayfield said that other measures existed, but they were much more difficult to “pull the trigger” on. The historical appearance of the school, he said, was also an expensive facet of the project, but a difficult one to remove without heavy consideration.

At the regular session, during community input, both former Interim Superindentent Dr. Tina McBride and Administrative Assistant to the Superintendent Lisa Duncan were recognized for their recent efforts and service.

Alongside the FY23 June purchase orders and FY24 purchase orders, the board unanimously approved the FY24 Tentative Budget, which will have public hearings on July 11 at 5 p.m. and July 20 at 8:15 a.m. for the community to give their feedback on the tentative budget.

According to the board, the budget will be considered for final adoption by the board on July 25 at 6 p.m.

The board then entered into executive session before adjourning the regular meeting.