A new committee of the Jefferson City Board of Education agreed Thursday it would seek a construction management company to be charged with hiring subcontractors and would have a direct role in the work on the two high school projects.
The new facilities planning committee's responsibilities consist of reviewing and making strategic and fiscal recommendations on the use, maintenance, design and construction of district facilities.
In addition to the two high school projects and other construction efforts, responsibilities also will include reviewing future school boundary adjustments and potential recommendations for their adjustment.
Board President Steve Bruce said the facilities planning committee is different than the district's Long Range Facilities Planning Committee.
Board Vice President Rich AuBuchon will chair the new committee, which includes Bruce and board member Lori Massman.
Architects from ACI Boland, the DLR Group and Architects Alliance, including Alliance's principal architect Cary Gampher, attended Thursday's meeting to answer questions from the committee. Those three firms are attached to the projects to build a second high school off Missouri 179 at Mission Drive and extensively renovate the current high school at 609 Union St.
The committee considered three options for construction management of the two high school projects:
General contracting: One contractor is hired through a bidding process to oversee construction and, in turn, hires subcontractors for specific aspects of the work. Jason Hoffman, the school district's chief financial and chief operating officer, said the projects' timeline is not suitable for this method.
Construction manager at agency (CMA): Instead of a single general contractor, a construction manager acts as a consultant and advises how to split up work bid packages to multiple general contractors, though the projects' owner actually holds those contracts. For example, the owner could have a contract for electrical work, a different contract for excavation work, and so on.
Construction manager at risk (CMR): In this model, the construction manager cuts out the middle person of a general contractor and directly holds the contracts for any number of subcontractors - not the owner. The construction manager still monitors the budget and schedule, but because it has taken a direct role in the projects' progress, it can bear more financial risk for delays.
In both construction manager models, the smaller contracts can provide more opportunities for local workers to get involved, since smaller contractors might not otherwise have the bonding capacity to work on a single large project. The construction manager also monitors the projects' budget and schedule.
Bonding capacity for contractors refers to the maximum amount of surety credit a company will provide a contractor. Surety is money given as a guarantee to someone to support their performance of a duty or action - in this case, completing a construction contract.
The facilities planning committee recommend the district pursue the CMR model. They were hesitant at first, because the district is more familiar with using general contracting. However, the decision to pursue hiring a CMR is not necessarily final, but only sets the district down a path as it begins to ask for requests for qualifications and conducts interviews, Gampher said.
AuBuchon said they can change their minds if they don't like the options they receive.
"The ones I've talked to said it's a decision made with the owner," Gampher said of how subcontractors would be chosen by the CMR. The district and board want to ensure as much as possible that local subcontractors get work on the high school projects.
Construction managers can also perform their own construction work, particularly if a subcontractor were to fail, but the manager has to bid its work like any other competitor.