District 65 Value Engineering Foster School
And a wild story about the process which awarded Cordogan-Clark the original work order
I was going through some of the District 65 meeting minutes and stumbled on this meeting, from November 9, 2022 (bold is mine) - this is 9 months after the District took the lease certificate money (March 14, 2022).
The architectural firm of Cordogan Clark will perform the dual role of architect and construction manager. Earlier in the summer, an RFQ was developed to identify and hire a construction management firm. The district received over 20 submissions from established construction management firms. At least eight firms were interviewed and Cordogan Clark was selected as best suited for the development of the Fifth Ward School. The CFO explained to the committee that the contract was negotiated in terms of project manager costs.
The committee recommended a ratified contract with Cordogan Clark & Assocs. Inc, Architectural and Construction management for the construction of the Fifth Ward School be presented to the full board for approval.
Wait, what?
Five days later, on November 14th, the Board ratified the contract with Cordogan Clark. What makes this odd is that neither the full Board nor the Finance Committee were aware that there were 20 bids and 8 interviewees before they voted - it is in the meeting minutes but they never discussed the subject in the meeting itself! You can watch on Youtube to confirm. 1
Anyway, the District put out an RFQ and then interviewed construction management firms and negotiated the contract totally in private. This is not how awarding public contracts works! There’s a whole set of rules for how contracts are awarded, it’s covered extensively in the IL School code (105 ILCS 5/10-20.21). They even followed the right process for a roofing job in the same meeting!
The District could argue this is exempt from standard bidding rules because of this exemption;
(i) contracts for the services of individuals possessing a high degree of professional skill where the ability or fitness of the individual plays an important part.
But then why even bother putting it out for RFQ and interview 8 potential construction manager firms? I think that once you put it out for bid, you forfeit the claim to that exemption and ought to follow the process in law.
Either way, this was all just role-playing because according to Dr. Turner’s memo, the District knew they didn’t have enough money in April 2022.
An April 2022 budget of $55,892,034 for a 108,649 square foot building or an alternative design and cost of $46,522,603 for a 103,395 square foot building.
So it’s not exactly clear what the construction manager was going to do here. It’s also not clear why this was never brought up to the Board, who signed the contract with no questions asked.
Skokie - Lincoln Junior High
You could may argue: Tom, you’re being unfair - this process isn’t that unusual - building a school is hard and it takes a lot of work to make it happen. You’re being unfair to the Board and Dr. Horton and they just needed time.
Sure, let’s look at the town to the left of us, Skokie. In 2019, the District 69 Board wanted to replace Lincoln Middle School.
December 17, 2019 - Board Passes Lease Certificate Resolution for $25,065,000
January 14, 2020 - $25,065,000 Lease Certificate Awarded
March 10, 2020 - $22,315,000 in Bonds Issued - these bonds were used to pay off the lease certificate in combination with reserves.2
April 14, 2020 - Contracts Awarded for Construction in Board Meeting
April 20, 2020 - Construction begins on Lincoln Junior High, which included demolition of the existing structure.
March 2022 - Construction is complete and the building opens.
In the April meeting, the Board noted that they were able to accept all of the additional add-ons (bold is mine):
Dr. Clauson reviewed the bid summary document showing that the total overall construction cost was under the original budget of $45 million, at $44,657,202. Multiple bid packages were received, and due to the competitive bids the District was able to accept all of the alternate add-ons. This means that the project will include: an outdoor track, an indoor track in the larger gymnasium, two dedicated instrumental music rooms, one general music/choir room, a full performance drama room, a maintenance garage, and additional aesthetic upgrades. All of this will be included and the project will remain under the $45 million budget.
The square footage is large: 124,800 square feet for $45 million. And this was all done right in the the middle of COVID! It’s a pretty cool looking structure — located off Oakton and Lincoln near the Skokie Public Library.
Because of how they structured financing, District 69 is not burdened with annual lease certificate installment payments - it was entirely paid off during the construction with a combination of reserves and general obligation bonds.
Meanwhile, District 65 Going Bare-bones
Meanwhile in Evanston, a full 30 months after the Board received funds for the lease certificate, they will be discussing “value engineering” with the Owner’s Representative. You can read the recommendations at this link or see the summary below - but it seems like the plan is essentially to reduce the height of some ceilings, remove a skylight, and optimize some of the HVAC designs. Evanston Now has some good coverage on the changes.
These sacrifices (among others, such as dropping the K-8 plan) are a direct result of the mismanagement by the Board and Horton Administration. Consider the following:
There was no good reason for the District to wait 9 months (March 2022 to November 2022) to even consider hiring a construction manager. Skokie had one hired before they even considered taking out the money.
District 69’s lease certificate was the second largest I could find, behind District 65’s and they paid it off already. District 65 is saddled with $3.25 million dollar payments for the next 18 years due to lies about the bus savings.
“But for these savings in transportation you would not have the cash flow necessary to issue $40 million in lease certificates to build the new school. I just wanted to make that clear.” — Raymond James
Skokie had an entire facilities plan before they started making decisions about new construction. District 65 still does not have a facilities plan and continues to punt the question to the closed door SAP 3 committees.
This Board can complain that they were lied to or mislead by the Administration, but if you look back to these meetings in November, not a single board member asked about why the District wasn’t following the proper bidding process, what was taking so long, or why the Cordogan Clark contract cost fields all said “TBD per Service Order”
The Fifth Ward is absolutely getting a subpar product and it is a direct result of this Board and the Horton Administration’s mismanagement.
Construction Underway
I took a detour on my way to Bagel Art and drove by the site this morning. There is still not a hole in the ground, but there are vehicles capable of digging holes. The contractor has begun removing the fence as well, so work does appear to be underway.
I just wish it could be what they actually promised the community. This Board owes the Fifth Ward community (and the taxpayers writ large) a full accounting of what the 2022 Board and Dr. Horton were doing, and who knew what, when.
There’s also a very awkward exchange where Mr. Hailpern says something about Family Focus not being part of the Foster School project, and Dr. Horton jumps on the mic very quickly to chide him (39:02).
Skokie also used a loophole to avoid sending the school to referendum. They took out a lease certificate and then paid it off with general obligation bonds. From the August 2019 meeting, “Ms. Arnedo also explained that the Board will need to issue lease certificates to a bank in lieu of a referendum. The bank will then hold the title to the new school until the certificates are paid and construction is complete. Mr. Attaway commented that the lease certificates will be paid well before the completion of construction so it is projected that the title will transfer to the school district before the start of the 2021-22 school year.”
I see the whole thing with CC as a little more nefarious:
1. At the time the contract was awarded to CC, the only ones who knew that the lease certificate money was not enough to cover the cost of putting up the building were CC and Horton and crew.
Had someone else been brought in to manage the project, I would like to believe that one of the first things that they would have said would have been along the lines of, "Hey, you have $40 million to build this, where is the rest of the dough coming from?" The new construction manager would never want to be left holding the bag on a half completed project with no money left to finish it.
Of course, having someone say that would have screwed up Horton and crew polishing their resumes on their way to bigger, better, higher paying jobs.
2. There is some unknown cost difference between what the District has paid CC versus what they would have paid the low responsible bidder. That is money that should have been available for other uses, whether it is paying to build Foster School or educate our kids. Instead it has gone to line the pockets of people who kept their mouths shut about the problems with this project.
There are probably some good reasons to have not shown CC the door when the problems with this project came to light, but they richly deserved it.
People say you can’t build things in America anymore. They’re wrong. You can build them in Skokie.