Committee OKs $32.6M for New High Schools Work

John Bates of Left Field Project Management, which is managing the construction for the new high schools, said the funds would pay for seven to eight months of construction personnel services, equipment, insurance, and permitting fees.

Bates explained the vote would authorize Dimeo Construction to invoice against $3.7 million as a partial release of the general conditions and general requirements, “to enable them to start spending some money to continue into construction.”

New High Schools elements under budget, harmful chemicals being cleaned up

Last month, the committee approved early bid packages for Pilgrim, along with the Stage 3 design submission to RIDE.

Capco Steel will be the steel erectors for the work. Capco’s bid was $8.41 million, which Chris Spiegel of Left Field had noted was $699,500 under budget.

The committee approved awarding the contract for concrete to Marguerite, which bid $5,597,000 – more than $200,000 below the budget of $5.8 million. 

The committee approved Schindler to handle the elevator service in a 5 to 0 vote. The bid was $259,000. The budgeted amount was $375,000. 

The committee also approved in a 5 – 0 vote $18.4 million for the remediation of harmful chemicals, including arsenic, discovered by Left Field. 

“This is an import site meaning that currently the design requires no additional soil to be removed from the site to make it work,” said Spiegel. “In a few select areas, we found what are called PAHs – a result of partially combusted petroleum products. They’re very common in soils in Rhode Island and elsewhere. We’ve had them on every project that I’ve ever worked on. They are currently capped by existing soil.” 

The chemical remediation money will be drawn from the project’s $17.1 million contingency fund which was designated for “unsuitable soils” and other items which Left Field “does not have the information for,” Spiegel continued.

Committee vice-chairman David Testa suggested that the entire contingency may not need to be used for the remediation work.

“This assumes that we have to remove six inches of soil from almost the entire site,” Spiegel replied. “We only found these hints at approximately 30 percent of the wells that we tested. It’s not something that we’re concerned about. To protect the owner, we want to make these allocations now so that they are allocated as part of our budget and we can remediate any issue that comes up.”

Meanwhile, the Warwick Public Schools Budget Commission, once Mayor Frank Picozzi’s appointees are confirmed April 21, will be responsible for passage of the district’s FY26 budget as well as the creation of a five year plan to reduce the district’s budget deficit. The school department had been faced with a $9 million deficit for the current fiscal year, which the School Committee has since reduced to about $3 million.

“Nobody before me from the administration or up here on this stage actually is going to approve that plan,” Chairman Shaun Galligan explained. “That plan is going to be approved per the legislation by that commission. That five year plan, nothing is set in stone at this moment, it was a draft, it’s being publicly discussed and so I ask the public to work with us as we continue to navigate this.”

According to Interim Superintendent William McCaffrey, the law establishing the Warwick Schools Budget Commission took effect on April 3, after it was approved in both chambers of the General Assembly. The School Department’s appointee, Joseph Crowley, retired director of the Warwick Area Career and Technical Center, and Galligan’s appointee, Sherri Kuntze, audit Manager at Cavanagh CPAs & Associates, are each official members of the Budget Commission.  However,  Picozzi’s  three appointees  must still be confirmed by the City Council, so Finance Director Peder Schaefer must approve Warwick Schools spending until then.

Crowley told the school committee an audit of the district’s FY’24budget was being conducted and a consultant was analyzing the FY’25 budget.”We’re trying to make sure that going forward there’s a solid footing for the new Director of Finance. We’re trying to do everything that we can to make sure that he can hit the ground running,” he said.

The video of the meeting, as it was live streamed can be seen at the district’s YouTube channel. 

Author: Joe Siegel

Joe Siegel is a regular contributing writer for WarwickPost.com. His reporting has appeared in The Sun Chronicle in Attleboro and EDGE.