Millions in school building updates approved by Carroll board

The Carroll County Board of Education unanimously approved millions of dollars in school improvements last week, including roof replacements for North Carroll Middle and Spring Garden Elementary schools and a gym floor refurbishment for Liberty High School.

Superintendent Cynthia McCabe said during the board’s monthly meeting March 13 that roof replacement bids were higher than anticipated for North Carroll Middle School. The replacement will cost nearly $3.6 million.

The North Carroll Middle bid exceeded the construction budget by $564,000, and Maryland agreed to assign $211,000 of unspent Healthy School Facilities Funds, as well as other project budget realignments, to help defray the expense, according to the construction report.

Adjustments were made by staff, McCabe said, and the change will be reflected in an updated version of the school system’s capital improvement program, which the school board will vote to approve in May.

“The contract award required some adjustments with the state interagency commission on school funding, known as the IAC,” McCabe said, “and ultimately required the county to increase local participation by just $100,000.”

Construction supervisor James Marks said the inflated price is due to an increase in costs for construction contractors, and the increased expense to the system would have been much higher without state aid.

Marks said the best way to combat increasing expenses is to conduct the bidding process earlier.

“We are going to try to get our designs done faster and beat some of the other counties out there with their process,” Marks said. “It seems like we’re all trying to race each other.”

An alternate bid was accepted for North Carroll Middle, which McCabe said includes the installation of metal wall panels at the gables and increased the project’s cost by $59,400.

“The gable ends in North Carroll middle are already having problems staying together,” Marks said. “These panels are not as thick and they’re not as strong as metal. It’s more of an inferior product, so they were had more of a need to change those out.”

Alternate bids are evaluated based on their importance to each project, Marks said. An alternate bid that would have added $95,000 to the Spring Garden Elementary project’s cost was a decorative option and was not accepted.

School board member Steve Whisler asked if bids for the North Carroll project could have been combined with the $3.2 million Spring Garden Elementary School roof replacement for a lower total cost.

Marks said this has been done in the past, but there was no interest from contractors to double up on the respective school roof replacement projects.

“Roofers don’t want two very large projects,” Marks said. “We figured that they might want both, since they’re very close together – Spring Garden and North Carroll Middle – but they showed no interested in that … which kind of surprised me.”

McCabe said bidding for the roof replacement projects now also allows for items to be ordered with plenty of time to arrive before the summer work window begins.

CitiRoof Corp., a roofing contractor based in Columbia, will handle the North Carroll Middle School project and Interstate Corp., of Gaithersburg, will work on Spring Garden Elementary, according to the award of bids.

The Liberty High School gymnasium floor will be refurbished by Miller Sports for $32,360 this summer. McCabe said the project will use state Aging Schools Program funds.

Schindler Elevator Corp. was also contracted to service the Carroll County Career and Technology Center’s freight elevator for the next 10 years, for $5,220 each year.

Improvements to the career and technology center, a nearly $74 million construction project adding 108,205 square feet of space to the facility, are expected to be complete this July.

Marks said an end date for the East Middle School construction project is currently unknown. The project is tracking on budget, he said.

The school board unanimously approved a change order allocating up to $600,000 of additional funds to the project on Dec. 13, after unexpected rock removal at the site of the new school building’s bus loop and parking lot was deemed necessary.

Blasted rocks have been buried, drainage infrastructure has been installed in front of the school and in the west field area, and retaining wall work has resumed, according to the construction report.

“They started bringing the dirt back, which is a good sign, so we’ve starting to move it,” Marks said. “We’re still getting weekly storms, which slows us down on the dirt moving, but we’re doing everything we can.”

HVAC replacements for Oklahoma Road Middle School and Mount Airy Elementary School are expected to commence on April 15, according to the report. The Mount Airy project is expected to be complete by August 2025 and the Oklahoma Road project is expected to be complete next January.

Classroom activities will not be disrupted, as almost everything will be done over the summer, Marks said.

“We will be off to the back in the loading dock area. We won’t bother any instruction or any activities back there,” he said.

The January, 2025 completion date for Oklahoma Road Middle School’s HVAC represents a long lead time for the generator and chiller replacements, for what was expected to be a longer project.

“This was originally scheduled to be a two-summer job, and this contractor has found a way to want to finish it in one year, so we’re pleased about that,” Marks said.

Additionally, site concept designs for kindergarten and prekindergarten additions at Cranberry Station, Friendship Valley and Taneytown Elementary Schools have been submitted to the county. The submission of schematics for an addition at Sandymount Elementary is expected to occur this month, according to the construction report.