The long anticipated and often delayed new West Wendover Elementary school finally was approved by the Elko County School board on a 5-2 vote last week.
Both board member Cindy Elquist and board chairman Thad Ballard voted against the new school on the grounds that the project was $400,000 over its original $30 million dollar budget.
This May the board unanimously rejected bids for the new school.
“Every bid came in over the estimated budget,” Zander explained at the time. “We will have to go back to the drawing board and maybe do some cutting.”
Some of the cutting included slightly shrinking classroom size from 960 square feet to 900 square feet, relocating the main campus thus shortening the access road and cutting out lockers in the new gymnasium.
The new elementary was part of a $33 million project that also included a retro fit of the current elementary school into a middle school and a new road to alleviate traffic congestion and a ball field.
The school board had put the project at the top of the “pay as you go” agenda in which means construction on the new school could start in 2014 and be completed in 2015.
Pay-as-you-go school tax revenue through the end of fiscal year 2013 is estimated at just over $39 million, according to the five-year plan.
The need for a middle school in West Wendover was acknowledged almost since the West Wendover Jr/Sr high school opened in 1996.
However the project was sidelined in the late 1990’s when the price of gold collapsed and tax revenues in Elko County subsequently plunged. Talk of the new middle began again in the mid 2000’s but again the economy turned sour in the Great Recession and all building projects were put on indefinite hold.
In the meantime West Wendover made due with stopped gap temporary trailers that now house about 50 percent of its elementary students.
The district had planned for a maximum of about $33 million to be spent for the school, Zander said. Bids came in at nearly $40 million.
Board members said they would not vote to accept the bid if it would mean postponing other projects in the district because of budgetary concerns.
The major cost cutting changes Zander said came not from the building itself but rather its location.
Instead of putting the new school in the middle of the property it was moved closer to the side thus shortening the access road the district committed to build. As any West Wendover parent can attest traffic is a major safety problem at the current elementary school.
According to the conceptual schedule, construction of the new West Wendover elementary school could begin as early as April 2015. The old elementary school building could then be bid for a renovation into a middle school. Construction on that project could begin in 2017.
