04/01/2015 – E-SPLOST

04/01/2015 Work/Business
C.10.A – Increase the E-SPLOST IV Capital Program Budget

The revenues collected are well above budget and expectations, as you noted (the entire program is trending 10% above expectations). That money is allocated for three SPLOST-related items.
The first is to replenish program contingency, which has taken a bit of a hit for a few projects due to increased construction costs across the metro area, which necessitated budget reallocations for them.
The second is to call bonds issued for SPLOST III earlier than anticipated, which allows the District to retire them at a cheaper price.
The third is to create a new project number under the Program, and entirely new item, that will address life safety issues identified by the Fire Marshal on a Program-wide basis. This separate project will address those life safety concerns only at schools that have existing projects under the SPLOST IV program; in other words, there will be no dollars spent even under this item for any school that was not identified in the referendum.
C.10.C – Fernbank Soil Remediation

Question: Is there an engineering firm overseeing the Fernbank rebuild project? RKR Redding Construction was awarded the General Contractor contract on the Fernbank replacement project. They are now asking for $284K for soil remediation. Wouldn’t the engineering firm overseeing this project have done core/soil samples? Wouldn’t those results be a part of the general contractor RFP?
Answer: Yes, there are multiple engineers involved with the Fernbank project, as well as the architect providing general design oversight. However, the issue of unsuitable soils is addressed more specifically as well, as there is a third party geotechnical firm that is obligated to be onsite to quantify the amount of unsuitable soils removed from the site, so that it corresponds with the amounts designated on any change orders (such as the one that precipitated the request for an additional sum of $284 thousand). They are charged with materials testing (such as ensuring concrete pours are of the proper density and mixture) and other sampling required by the contract.
There was a project allowance for the removal of unsuitable soils, which is calculated based upon the sampling that is undertaken at the outset but it was exhausted due to the discovery of substantially more unsuitable materials than anticipated.
The excess soils removed from the site (“remediated”) in this instance are almost entirely the result of rock and other unsuitable soils discovered underneath the existing building. Those obviously were not detected when the site samples were taken.