The overall budget for the Greene County School District project is closer to being on target.

Superintendent Tim Christensen says the initial bids for the new high school, career academy and high school renovation into a middle school project came in at $37,073,000, which was higher than the $35,480,000 projected cost. So the School Board approved Henkel Construction, even though their bid was over the total amount. Having to negotiate a $1.5 million financial gap, Christensen says they’ve identified $600,000 of value engineering with Henkel, where changes can be made to the project to achieve some cost savings.

Another area of cost savings was accomplished following the Board’s recent decision to sell the second part of the general obligation bonds of $5.5 million to Robert Baird of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Christensen notes that the Board already sold $15.48 million in bonds last August for a total of $21.48 million of bonds.

“Even though we talked about selling $21.48 mllion in bonds, we actually earned an additional $265,000 (in premiums) from selling those bonds that will go towards the project as well. And then we initially sold those bonds last year, again the $15.48 million that we’re able to invest, so we’re projecting just over $400,000 of interest that we’ll earn on that. All those numbers put together, we’re over budget by approximately $300,000, which is less than one-percent of the total budget. So (I) feel really good about where numbers are and everything. So (I’m) excited about where we’re at moving forward.”

Christensen adds there is a three-percent, or about $900,000, of contingency built into the budget that if left unspent can be used to reduce the gap as well.