Three new Charlotte-Mecklenburg schools got their builders Tuesday night, a day before the bid for one of them was set to expire.
Board member Stephanie Sneed had moved to hold the contracts for Beverly Woods Elementary, Huntersville Elementary and Berryhill School, worth $181.7 million together, until Dec. 8, so the board's policy committee could first take up its contracting and conflict-of-interest rules. District staff said waiting would mean starting over on Beverly Woods and Huntersville and that both would miss their August 2028 opening.
After 36 minutes of debate, the board approved all three 9-0, on the condition that they follow whatever conflict-of-interest and contracting rules the board adopts next.
"My concern is that the delay in the timeline of 90 days is basically a start over to the project," Acting Superintendent Melissa Balknight told the board. "There's no way we'll meet our deadline."
Bids with an expiration date
The contracts are for building three schools in the 2023 bond, according to the district's agenda packet: a new 45-classroom Beverly Woods Elementary on its current campus ($56,857,070 to Edifice Inc.), a new 45-classroom Huntersville Elementary on its campus ($55,019,378 to Swinerton Builders) and a new Berryhill School on another site ($69,786,855 to Messer Construction Company). All three are scheduled to open in August 2028.
Each company will be the district's construction manager at risk on its school: the contractor hired after the design is done, which builds the school and hires the subcontractors under the district's rules, as Tim Ivey, the operations chief listed as responsible for all three contracts, described it to the board.
Ivey said the Beverly Woods bid "expires on November 11th." Huntersville's would expire Nov. 25 and Berryhill's Dec. 14. If the first two lapsed, he said, CMS would have to seek new bids, and those "may go up depending on time."
"Not one piece of paper"
The board had held contracts once already. Beverly Woods and Huntersville were first written up for its Oct. 27 consent agenda, the list of routine items approved in a single vote. That night the board voted 6-3 to pull three consent items, which the member who moved it said represented $111 million, to its next meeting, saying its contracting and conflict-of-interest policies "are still unresolved." On Tuesday, Sneed said the policy committee had not yet met on them.
Ivey said the firms, their subcontractors and the selection committee that scores the proposals each sign a form attesting that they have no conflict of interest, which he said a state statute requires. Asked whether anyone had broken that pledge, he said the district does "not have evidence that that's happening from the measures that we are currently using."
Sneed said the board was hearing about those checks for the first time that night, with nothing in writing. "There's no evidence before us today that satisfied anything that you're talking about," she said. "We don't have anything, not one piece of paper." If the board moved ahead anyway, she said, "I'm concerned that we are starting to engage in a pattern and practice of discrimination," with the board "being selective" about what it chose to examine. She did not say who she believed was being treated differently. She called the night "a failure on both parts," the board's and the staff's.
Balknight said staff had shared some of that information in an earlier update, and Ivey said copies of both attestation forms were in the appendix of staff's presentation that night.
Board member Shamaiye Haynes said the board had recently paused a contract that "would have allowed us to have an assessment of our compliance." If the board approved the school contracts, she said, "I think we also need to see that compliance assessment report that we put a pause on."
Board member Charlitta Hatch suggested the board take up the conflict-of-interest policy itself that night or the next day. "If we can't, we're not willing to do it tonight, then can we call a meeting for tomorrow?" she asked. Board Chair Gregory "Dee" Rankin said that was up to the policy committee.
Others wanted the schools kept on schedule. Board member Cynthia Stone said the district could review the contracts and keep building at once. "The price of things just goes up and up and up," she said.
Vice Chair Liz Monterrey Duvall, who chairs the board's bond committee, said she was in "a tough position." "We need to apply it consistently," she said, though the schools "definitely need to be built."
Rankin sided with staff. "Students and families need these done on time," he said. "I trust the process."
A condition instead of a delay
Sneed first changed her motion to approve Beverly Woods and Huntersville and hold only Berryhill until Dec. 8. A show of hands rejected that; the chair did not announce a count. Monterrey Duvall then offered to approve all three and audit them once the new policy passes. Sneed declined that wording and rewrote her own motion: approve all three now, subject to any changes the policy committee brings and the full board adopts. The board accepted that version, then approved the contracts 9-0.
The board did not set a date for the policy committee to take up the rules.
Also Tuesday
The board voted 9-0 to create an ad hoc committee on its own governance, after members pulled its charter off the consent agenda to debate it. Board member Lenora Shipp asked whether the board could take on more work with a superintendent search under way. Haynes, who proposed the committee, said she took it seriously when a colleague told the board weeks ago, "We are a mess." The committee of three or four members is to dissolve by Jan. 27, 2027, unless the board extends it.
On its consent agenda, approved unanimously, the board approved selling the former Collinswood Language Academy campus to Mecklenburg County for $15 million, which county commissioners voted to buy Oct. 20. It also voted 9-0 to revise its policy on instructional and library materials to match a new state law.
Eighteen of the 43 public comment sign-ups listed kindergarten play as their topic. Parents and teachers with the group K Needs Play asked the board to pay for play-based learning in every kindergarten classroom next school year. Speakers said the district is trying it in nine schools this year.