But the decision has not come easily.

The board was stunned to find out March 21 that all the bids came in over budget.

Pressed to make a decision anyway, board president Pete Lundberg said, “I’m just getting over the shock.”

So the board met March 23 to try to come up with a solution.

At the school

Principal Rob Lowry said a common area for everyone to eat is missed.

“We’ve lost an edge in school spirit,” he said, adding announcements used to be made at lunchtime.

Student junior Kyler Alvis agreed.

“There’s no room now,” he said. “It’s horrible. Students eat outside and leave garbage everywhere.”

Students also eat in the Tomahawk Activity Center, freshman cafe and in classrooms.

“They gotta eat somewhere,” said math teacher Kristi Hudson, who had about a dozen kids in her room.

Assistant superintendent Ray Houser said the students have adapted.

“They’re quite resilient,” he said.

At the follow-up meeting

The board came to an informal consensus to accept the low big of $8.24 million from Tiger Construction. The state is paying $7.5 million, so there was discussion on where the local funds would come from, but no decision made.

“We can work on that over the next few months,” Lundberg said.

Finance director Jim Baker said funds could be transferred from other accounts. He said $185,000 is available in the capital projects budget, and there’s $103,000 left over from the transportation center. Another $353,000 could be saved by not setting aside contingency funds.

That would leave $455,000.

They talked about some items that could be cut, such as air conditioning or shades.

“We could add that after the fact,” Houser said.

Board Member Tom Albright said, “We could make a decision on the shade later, after the bond.

Many of the money woes could be solved if a $230 million bond is passed April 26.

If they decide against the shade, the local cost would be $231,000. Those funds could be handled internally in the budget over the next two years with interest earnings, Baker said.

Prediction off

District officials explained Monday that the costs analysis was off because of labor.

Architect Bill Chaput said part of the high cost has to deal with the district’s desire to expedite the process. He suggested one way to possibly save money would be to start construction later so the food commons could be done by the start of the school year in 2017.

Also discussed was reducing the square footage of the building. But to get to the amount needed, 2,650 square feet would need to be cut. That means some classrooms, the student store and offices would be taken out of the project, along with part of the kitchen and cafeteria itself.

“Do we really want to reduce” the size of the project? Houser asked.

Baker responded, “It reflects what little there is to cut. It’s thin, no question. Resources are getting tighter and tighter.

“We appreciate what the legislature did, but it wasn’t quite enough,” he added.