6/21/22 Special Meeting of the WCSD Board of Trustees
On 6/14/22 the Board of Trustees delayed voting on multiple consent and agenda items that dealt with approving awarded building/Engineering contracts. Trustee Church believes that Trustees who are currently WCSD School Board candidates should disclose relevant campaign donors so there would be no appearance of bias or “quid pro quo” when voting.
WCSD Legal Counsel Neil Rombardo did not believe that it was necessary that the Trustees disclose donors outside of the legally mandated time frame required by the State NRS 281. But, “out of an abundance of caution” he advocated that the Trustees reveal their relevant donors.
Trustee Smith : Stated that she “agreed with General Counsel Rombardo and this (publicly disclosing campaign contributions) is entirely unnecessary”
Smith received contributions from:
Labors International (which was reported in her Q1 C&E filings - which makes us assume that the following contributions have not recorded with the State yet)
Building and Construction Trades
Associated General Contractors of Nevada
Q&D Construction (who is WCSD’s Construction Management At Risk - CMAR partner, who serves as WCSD’s representative and consultant during the projects.)
Smith also stated that “As a Trustee, I do not participate in who may receive the actual contract to complete the projects. Thus there can be no quid pro quo and nor is there quid pro quo.”
BBME believes that the public should hear each Trustee's relationship with any or all vendors regardless of whether said Trustee is running for office or not. Regarding the notion that there can be “NO quid pro quo” because the Trustee does not “participate in who gets the contract” does not hold water if the FINAL approval of the bid is that of the Board of Trustees.
Trustee Rodriguez echoed Trustee Smith verbatim. He received campaign contributions from:
Building and Construction Trades
Associated General Contractors
Q&D Construction (who is WCSD’s Construction Management At Risk - CMAR partner, who serves as WCSD’s representative and consultant during the projects.)
Trustee Mayberry repeated verbatim what the 2 other Trustees said. He received campaign contributions from:
Labors International (which was reported in his Q1 C&E filings - which makes us assume that the following contributions have not been recorded with the State yet)
Teamsters 533
Building and Construction Trades
Associated General Contractors Of Nevada
Western Nevada Supply
Savage & Sons
President Taylor acknowledged her campaign contributions:
Core West Construction
Clark & Sullivan Construction
2.01 Discussion and possible action on the budget and schedule of the Debbie Smith CTE Academy.
The Debbie Smith CTE construction budget has ballooned from $112 Million to $147 Million due to a number of unforeseen consequences such as Supply Chain issues, changing market factors and timing of construction. The Capital Funding Protection Committee
proposed 2 feasible options to the Board. One non-feasible option was to go ahead with the project at the $147 Million proposal. There are not sufficient funds appropriated nor is there a way to re-allocate monies. The Committee also has no authority to issue more debt.
The Phased Delivery Option was the recommendation of the Committee to the Board. This allows for construction to begin, keeps the original budget of $112 Million and allows for financial adjustments along the process. But, this would require Re-Bidding.
The other option proposed was to pause the project indefinitely.
During the Q&A Trustee Mayberry thanked the Capital Projects for bringing this to the Board “thank you for being transparent because other public agencies would have pushed this through under the radar.” BBME is not sure how many public agencies could have gotten away with burying a $35 Million dollar construction overage.
Trustee Rodriguez also added that “no one could have predicted the war in Ukraine” as one reason why the budget for the project budget increased.
The Board voted 6-1 to approve the Phased Delivery option of the Debbie Smith CTE Academy.
Trustee Church voted NAY - he was worried about how inflation may impact the numbers and that a new Superintendent was coming in 11 days.
2.03 Presentation, discussion and possible action for Major Projects for the amount of $47 million
Projects include: $10 million - roofing, flooring, painting
$7.6 million - HVAC, plumbing
$4.6 million - IT Device Refresh
$3.8 million - pavement repair
$1.4 million - security
$2.5 million - Design Phase only of Getto Central Transportation Yard