The Clay County Board of Education awarded a $310,000 paving contract Thursday to resurface the parking lot at the Celina K-8 School.
Chairman Benji Bailey said the board received five bids for the project. The board also considered whether to hire a civil engineer or a specialist to oversee the work.
“We have several surfaces in need of paving, but the surface at the K-8 was the most dire and probably the biggest undertaking,” Bailey said. “So we proceeded with bidding this project last month, and we did receive five bids, which we’re thankful for that.”
Board Member Nick Melton was the lone “no” vote for the bid approval for Rogers Group. The next lowest bid was Cornerstone Construction which came in at $317,975.
“I understand it’s the low bid, but me personally, I would rather give it to a man with someone besides a big corporation like that,” Melton said.
Director of Schools Diana Monroe said the bidding process was mandatory and all participating companies were licensed. Bailey said the board evaluated several reputable companies including Edmonds Paving, which had previously performed resurfacing work for the district in 2019.
After the meeting, Melton said his dissenting vote was made in an effort to be transparent about his desire to support local companies.
“I’m not trying to pick on big corporations or anything,” Melton said. “I’m just always an underdog kind of guy. That’s what I am. I’m an underdog. I’m a nobody. So I wanted to give that person a chance to try to the same same chance as they had, as the corporation did.”
“Someone like Rogers Group, even though they’re big, they’re still going to work local people from the area, you know, within a county or two over,” Board Member David West said.
Bailey said the board discussed the undercutting process and noted that the final cost could fluctuate if contractors encounter poor soil conditions during the project.
“They would have to tell us first before they started doing it,” Monroe said. “We would have to issue an individual P.O. in addition to the bid if that happens.”
In other business, the board approved to keep the same janitorial crew for next year, with an additional three percent pay increase.
The school board approved the hiring of a new high school cheerleading coach and a K-8 softball coach following clean background checks. They also approved a slew of contracts for next year including occupation and physical therapy services from Elevate Therapy as well as speech and language services from Stacy Birge and Megan Brown.
