MISD School Board Meeting Wrap Up: One of the more notable items on tonights agenda of the Marshall Independent School District Board of Trustees meeting was Superintendent Dr. Marc Smiths recommendation to the board regarding an architectural firm to help advise MISD in the coming months, as they continue to eye a May bond election. The board approved hiring Fort Worth Based Huckabee Inc., an architectural firm specializing in school construction and working with school districts. Other school districts in our area, including Kilgore, Longview and Gladewater, have used Huckabees services. “We’ve had posted for quite some time now a request for qualifications (RFQ) and we had a great response. This is the first step as we continue our discussion about a potential bond election in May. We wanted to reevaluate our playbook, and start fresh, and this is the first step,” said Dr. Smith. Dr. Smith made it clear choosing the firm would not exclude any of the other firms that responded to the request for qualifications from being involved in the actual construction process should a bond election be held and pass in May. “This first step is really to assist us with the campaigning part of it. What the RFQ does is give us a pool of applicants that we have already vetted, we are already familiar with them and we already have their qualifications, said Smith. Down the line we hope we pass a bond at some point, and as we have different projects, we don’t have to do the RFQ process again because we will already have a group that we feel really good about that we can pull from. Based on their unique attributes we can assign certain projects to a particular group. Monday’s decision does not qualify anyone else from participating, this is kind of just the start process for the campaign. The board also discussed and approved a budget amendment allowing the purchase of two new route busses for the district, along with a 14 passenger activity bus and a special education bus with a wheelchair lift. The cost of the purchase will be $224,600.00, and is being paid for from a budget surplus. Two of the busses will need air conditioning, which can be added at a cost of less than $10,000.00 according to Leon Fisher, MISD Transportation Director. The district currently has 48 busses, with 41 daily routes and is in need of more busses so they will have plenty for athletics and field trips, plus several spares. Fisher said the school district could really use as many as 15-20 additional busses, but added this was a great start.
Posted on: Tue, 23 Sep 2014 01:54:05 +0000
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