The Berlin
Cit itiz ize en
Volume 17, Number 11
Berlin’s Only Hometown Newspaper
www.berlincitizen.com
Thursday, March 14, 2013
BHS offers play school to local Town will pursue state aid to help pay BHS youngsters for 45th year Phase II overages By Monica Szakacs The Berlin Citizen
By Monica Szakacs The Berlin Citizen
Berlin High School will once again sponsor a play school for children, of Berlin residents, between the ages of three and four. This will be the 45th year the program is offered at the school. The play school is part of a child development class offered at the high school to give 12th grade students an opportunity to apply what they have learned to handson experience in working with children from the local community, according to Diane Richards, BHS family and consumer science teacher. “We currently have two sections with 22 students in each class,” Richards said. “It is a very popular class and one the students wait four years to take.” High school students spend the first 10 weeks
Submitted by Diane Richards
BHS seniors interact and observe preschoolers as See Play, page 9 part of their child development class.
Willard school roof replacement estimates at $1.7 million By Monica Szakacs The Berlin Citizen
owner’s contingency, which comes to $276,400. With additional professional and legal fees at $56,600, the total project cost comes to $1,714,970. The estimate is based on 2013 construction costs. Al Jacunski, of Jacunski Humes Architects, said for each year the project is deferred, he estimates the cost to increase by 4 percent. The project also is eligible for reSee Roof, page 10
See Aid, page 23
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The Board of Education recently sent a request to Town Council for $1,714,970 to replace the roof of Willard Elementary School. Council has since approved the request and has sent a proposal to the bond council to prepare a bond authorization for bid documents. A public hearing on this matter is scheduled for Tuesday,
March 19, at 6:45 p.m. The town hired Jacunski Humes Architects, LLC of Berlin, in 2010 to inspect and evaluate all sections of the school’s roof. Since then, Jacunski Humes has prepared preliminary design plans, recommendations and cost estimates. The construction subtotal comes to $1,381,970. Jacunski Humes and Public Works Director Art Simonian added a 20 percent construction and
The total cost estimate for the Berlin High School renovation project is $84,184,987, based on the Jan. 8 state Plan Completion Test documents. This estimate is $14,234,987 over the $69.9 million budget approved at the town referendum in March of 2011. But Mayor Adam Salina said there are “state remedies available” to help fund the additional costs so tax payers would not have to bear the brunt of any overages on the project. “What (town officials and I) are doing now is working with the state administration and legislators to come up with additional funds,” Salina said. There are school construction funds offered by the state. Neighboring communities, such as Meriden and Middletown, have gone through similar dilemmas in dealing with school renovation overages. “When you’re working off an initial estimate, expectations change over time because the process in which you go through for a school
construction project is extensive,” Salina said. “The state realizes that the estimated number is sort of a moving target, if you will, by the time you put a shovel in the ground. So there is additional funding for projects such as this one. The goal is to fund the project with no additional burden on the tax payer.” Since the follow-up PCT meetings on Feb. 6 and 7, the state has accepted the plans, and the documents were sent to Chris Laux to perform the local review. Laux is contracted through Gilbane Building Company — the construction management team — and he is currently in consultation with Public Works Director Art Simonian. Silver Petrucelli and Associates — the architectural team — have been working on updating the documents based on the state’s and Laux’s comments. In a monthly summary report by Gilbane, Silver Petrucelli and Simonian plan to return to the state with the local review comments incorporated into the construction