By Melanie Speicher
SIDNEY — A contract for the district-wide security system project was approved Tuesday night by the Sidney City Schools Board of Education. The board also heard concerns about the status of upgrades for Sidney High School’s auditorium.
The board accepted the bid of CJ Electric for the project at a cost of up to $1,294,852.
Treasurer Mike Watkins said the district has received a grant for $400,000 which will be used for the project. Funds, provided by the state of Ohio, must be earmarked this year and spent by Sept. 30. Building allocations for the grant includes $100,000 each for Sidney High School and Sidney Middle School; $45,000 for Whittier; and $50,000 for the other primary school buildings.
Watkins said doors and cameras are a security issue at the high school and middle school. At the elementary schools, the doors are more of a security issue, he said, because there is no consistency between buildings throughout the district including the high school and middle school. He said the grant money will focus on the door program for the district.
The security project began approximately 18 months ago, Watkins reported in a previous meeting, when an estimate was received from Vartek Services on security upgrades on all the buildings.
When the project was put out for bid, the district discovered that the original estimate didn’t include everything needed for the upgrades. Two bids for the project were received with CJ Electric submitting the lowest bid at $1,294,852.
The cost of the project was more than anticipated, causing potential delays to the upgrades of the high school auditorium.
Chris Gibbs, Gateway Arts Council president, was at the board meeting to express his concerns about delays to the auditorium project, which includes sound, lights, seating and other improvements.
In April 2022, said Gibbs, the board approved up to $750,000 to be spent on upgrades for the auditorium, which came from a committee recommendation on upgrades to existing systems including bringing equipment up to current safety codes, along with video and live streaming technology.
Previously, an air conditioning project was funded and installed in 2018, making the facility available year round.
On May 15, 2023, the group received an email from Humble concerning the auditorium project.
“I wanted to let you all know (Sadly) that due to the necessary security upgrades, the auditorium upgrades are being pushed back.” Humble wrote in the email. “We got grant money for the security upgrades district-wide that came in around $400,000 but when we actually bid out the scope of work it came back at $1.3+ million. We are looking to see if there is anything we can do audio-wise, but it may not be possible due to the entire scope of work for the auditorium. I am very sorry for this, but a choice had to be made.”
“After a follow-up clarification conversation with the superintendent, a brief conversation with the school treasurer regarding the canceled auditorium bidding process, a review of the legal notice (bid solicitation) appearing in the SDN (Sidney Daily News), an inquiry/response to/from the athletic director regarding projects that were completed within the athletic space, a conversation with Becker Impressions hired to print and distribute the auditorium bid package, an in-depth discussion with the School’s project engineer at the SSOE Group, and finally, a Sidney Daily New article published May 16, 2023, I lamented on social media the project had been summarily canceled,” said Gibbs.
“That caused pushback from school leadership – which I appreciated. The issue appeared to be one of semantics regarding the nuance and ramification between ‘canceled’ and ‘pushed back,’” he said.
“Now I do want to be fair here and grant there is no public mention of ‘yea’ or ‘nay’ regarding the status of the Auditorium project in recent agendas, minutes, or public reporting however, the superintendent’s use of past tense language, coupled with the bidding process for foundational circuitry necessary for all the electronic component upgrades, provides suspect circumstantial evidence pointing toward a repurposing of the approved and set aside funds.
“Again, because board minutes are painfully minimalistic and void of background discussion, the question begs clarification,” Gibbs said. “As you deliberate tonight regarding the security project and how it is to be funded, I do want to offer my recognition of what appears to be a funding predicament.
“I see and appreciate the push-pull between security upgrades and core mission spending on education. My lament is that in the environment we find ourselves in today, security contractors know school officials are petrified of having to stand in front of a traumatized public and justify why they didn’t spend every last dollar on security. And because vendors and contractors know this, there will always be a ‘better’ and much more expensive mouse trap which will invariably draw monies away from the core mission of education,” Gibbs said.
Watkins said once the final numbers are received for the security upgrade project, the district will be able to see where it can go with the auditorium project. The main focus will be on the audio portion of the project and whether it can be accomplished with or without the stage expansion.
