Anchorage-based MCG Explore Design will be paid nearly $400,000 in funds from the 2022 school maintenance bond to generate a design for consolidation of several Soldotna schools, after approval this week by the Kenai Peninsula Borough School District’s Board of Education and the Kenai Peninsula Borough Assembly.

According to a resolution adopted by the borough via their consent agenda on Tuesday, the borough’s purchasing and contracting department solicited proposals for “Soldotna Elementary & Soldotna Prep Consolidation Design Services” in September and received two proposals. The Proposal by MCG, with a cost of $383,436, was selected by “qualified borough and school district stakeholders.”

An invitation to bid published by the borough for the project says that the borough is seeking “a consultant with a fresh set of eyes” to create a plan to renovate “existing facilities” to house Soldotna Elementary, Redoubt Elementary, Montessori Charter School, River City Academy and Connections Home School. The document says also that Skyview Middle School will be evaluated for “feasibility of relocating the 6th grade program.”

Stalled progress

In early September, Borough Purchasing & Contracting Director John Hedges and Kenai Peninsula Borough Mayor Peter Micciche told both the school board and the assembly that the cost of reconstructing Soldotna Elementary School — the largest project included in a $65.5 million bond package approved by borough voters in 2022 — exceeds the funds available in the bond by roughly $15 million.

To surmount that deficit, Hedges in September pitched the development of this new education specification as necessary to proceed. An education specification defines a full design for a school and how its space will be used to complete the task of educating students.

“It’s the opinion that, if we don’t do that, then we truly haven’t done our diligence in regard to how we’re going to spend this $40 million in the Soldotna area,” he said to the school board Sept. 9.

The proposal was later discussed in an executive session between the school board and borough administration.

While on Tuesday there was no public comment offered to the assembly about the contract and it was approved unanimously via consent agenda without discussion, nearly a full hour of the school board’s meeting on Monday centered on discussion of the contract.

Dana Cannava, special projects and constituent relations with the mayor’s office, spoke first on behalf of Micciche during a public comment period — the mayor himself was out of state and unable to attend.

She said that funding to complete the project as originally pitched doesn’t exist. She said that until a version of reconstruction of Soldotna Elementary and renovation of other Soldotna schools can be found to fall within the $40 million budget, they “will not happen.”

“With the funding gap of $12 to 15 million, we either move forward comprehensively, or the Soldotna school project may have no way of moving forward,” she said.

Consolidation questions

Though the resolution and its attached memo say that the intent of developing a new education specification is to renovate existing facilities to house five Soldotna schools, borough leadership has said no decisions have yet been made how to proceed. Questions from the public and from the board centered on what the contractor would be asked to do and what consolidation of local schools might look like.

Members of the public who spoke, including Jeanne Reveal and Shannon Ferguson, asked how a consolidation of schools into the Soldotna Prep School, could serve the different disciplines and age ranges of the five schools in questions.

Kevin Lyon, director of planning and operations for the school district, said the Soldotna Prep Building could, as currently configured, house around 400 students — depending on their ages and needs.

Multiple members of the school board said they were surprised by details of the resolution.

Member Kelley Cizek said she hadn’t expected Redoubt Elementary to be included in the consolidation conversation.

The resolution and contract, Penny Vadla said, “does not read well.” She said she was frustrated to see the breadth of schools included in the proposal and focused particularly on language in the resolution that says the objective is “renovating existing facilities to house” all five schools.

“You’ve got littles with bigs,” she said. “You have a variety of types of schools that have their own feel — who they are … the way that it’s put down here, no wonder people were confused.”

Patti Truesdell said she’d left the executive session “feeling pretty positive,” but that the language of the resolution made her nervous.

“Has the decision been made not to rebuild?” she asked.

“The bottom line is, we don’t know,” Hedges said. He said it’s important to develop the consolidation concept to the same level as they understand the possibility of rebuilding Soldotna Elementary so the two ideas can be compared “apples to apples.”

Board Vice President Jason Tauriainen said he’s “bummed about the cost,” but that something needs to be done — “I’ll be supporting getting more information.”

Virginia Morgan said she’d understood that the contract would not be funded by the bond — Hedges told her that the project was always intended to be bond-funded, though there is language in the borough’s invitation to bid says that the project will be funded by a grant from the State Department of Commerce.

Micciche on Wednesday said that the language is a “boiler plate” inclusion that is “consistent with the possibility of a future grant award,” though also that future iterations of that language would instead say “may eventually be entirely or partially grant funded.”

He confirmed that the current proposal was never associated with a grant and that the cost would be “primarily” covered with bond funds, though some of the funding will come from the borough’s general fund because of the inclusion of Redoubt Elementary and Skyview Middle School — which aren’t part of the bond.

Board President Zen Kelly said during the board meeting that the request for proposals presented to the school board in September was unchanged “since then.” The contract means hiring someone to look at Soldotna schools and develop a plan forward, but he told members that the board would still have authority over what decision is ultimately made for the schools.

“If you want to pigeonhole it into this mega campus that’s going to happen — there is no plan yet,” he said. “There is no definitive plan. This is the process of developing a plan. They could possibly do something like combining schools and housing students but there is no set idea.”

The district is losing money every year, Kelly said, for maintenance of aging facilities. The district needs to consider all options for its facilities — “that’s what this RFP does.”

The effort to rebuild Soldotna Elementary came back at bid for $35 million, Kelly said.

“We don’t have that money,” he said. “That is the awful truth. We don’t have that within the bond proceeds. So we’ve got to think about a different way.”

Next steps

If no path can be found to complete a version of the project that benefits Soldotna students at the budget available, Kelly said, the bond funds will be returned and the district might have to start over with a more realistic sum.

Hedges told the board that the contract stipulates a 120-day timeline for returning the design after the contractor receives notice to proceed.

“We’re aware of the challenges in front of us,” he said. “It’s our intent to go through and answer all those concerns that everyone has and be able to sit before you with a recommendation to move forward with this project. With real information, equal information and comprehensive information to start an actual design project.”

The school board voted unanimously in favor of awarding the contract, over an advisory vote of “no” by Student Representative Emerson Kapp.

A full recording of the school board meeting will be available at the KPBSD’s BoardDocs website. Recorded assembly meetings can be found at kpb.legistar.com. The text of the resolution and memo can be found at either site.

Reach reporter Jake Dye at jacob.dye@peninsulaclarion.com.