During the Auburn University Board of Trustees meeting on Sept. 14, a budget expansion for the construction of a band rehearsal hall was approved.
Originally approved in April 2017, the project ran into trouble when contractors bid the project $2 million over the board-approved budget. As a result, it was put on hold for a year.
The project had a total budget of $5.5 million prior to the expansion.
“We re-bid the project in August of this year, about a month ago,” said Dan King, associate vice president for facilities while addressing the board.
When the project was originally bid in August 2017, four contractors submitted bids. The lowest bid for the project was $7.05 million, about $1.55 million over budget.
When the project was re-bid this year, five contractors submitted bids, and the lowest bid was $6.95 million, about $1.45 million over budget.
The budget expansion approved Friday will add $2 million to the budget to meet the shortcomings.
Some trustees raised issue with several recent projects going over their allotted budgets.
“Maybe we ought to think about bringing these projects back from the start if they are going to go over,” said Trustee Wayne Smith, an at-large member of the board and vice president pro tempore. “This is not a big project with a lot of money, but this is not the first time we’ve encountered this kind of issue.”
King said that the building they were planning on constructing has steadily decreased in size from 30,000 square feet to 14,600 square ft to fit into the budget after the first bid was made in August of last year.
“I’m not questioning this project in particular, I’m just questioning the process that we have,” Smith said.
He added that the board encounters similar issues with much larger projects that go over the initial budget.
Smith also said that if projects go over budget, he believes they should come back to the board so that the trustees can understand why the project went over budget.
“It’s not just a hypothetical question, in the sense that we are facing some of those issues now on some big projects,” said President Steven Leath. “I would say that me and my senior team are not comfortable with some of the numbers that we are seeing on some new projects right now, so I would be a lot more comfortable if we came back to some facet of the board.”
The $2 million budget increase includes the cost of the bid as well as updated costs for the electrical distribution transformer, audio-visual equipment, building security measures and additional contingency funds, according to the memorandum presented to the board.
It will be financed by a combination of the College of Liberal Arts funds and University general funds.
The building is proposed to be located east of Goodwin Hall. It will include a band rehearsal hall, instrument and uniform storage rooms and support space.
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