School board awards first District Services Center contract

Three hours after a ceremonial groundbreaking ceremony for the Cedar Rapids school district's District Services Center, school board members awarded a contract for the project's first bid package.

Rathje Construction Company in Marion had the lowest bid of $915,647 to complete the project's site grading and utilities. This includes the demolition of the district's transportation center.

District administrators recommended that the company's bid be accepted and board members unanimously agreed.

The estimate for this package was about $1.8 million.  Even the highest bid of $1.254 million, from McAninch Corporation in Des Moines, was below the estimate. However, Mike Gumm of Shive-Hattery Inc. said the difference of almost $900,000 “is not a realized savings at this time.”

Things could come up that could increase the cost, he said.

Board members also approved work agreements for the 2010-11 school year for several employee groups, including executive council employees.

The 70 executive council employees are administrators who work in buildings, the Educational Service Center, and in other centralized locations. This group will receive a 1 percent total package adjustment for the 2010-11 school year. The cost to the district is $103,999, which includes a mandatory increases in the Iowa Public Employees' Retirement System and the Federal Insurance Contributions Act.

District administrators will see an increase in their life insurance benefit from $100,000 to $200,000, but the district premium will not be increased with this change. They also will have the ability to convert five personal illness days to family illness leave per year.

School district in the metropolitan area that work together to secure the services of substitute teachers using the Substitute Employee Management System (SEMS) have agreed that substitute teacher pay for the 2010-11 school year won't change.

Substitute teachers will receive $13.75 per hour for a full day of work and $14.25 per hour for less than four hours of work in one school day next school year.

The users of SEMS have not agreed upon a standard pay rate for long-term substitute teachers. Long-term substitute teachers are those who work at least 11 consecutive days in the same assignment.

The Cedar Rapids district's payment for long-term subs is a flat rate of $20 per hour for teachers who have zero to 10 years of experience and $28 per hour for teachers who have 11 or more years of experience. This isn't an increase from last year's long-term substitute teacher rates.

SEMS is housed at Grant Wood Area Education Agency and is funded by member districts.