There was a hint of sticker shock when the Sunflower County Board of Supervisors opened the bids for the proposed transitional homeless shelter during Monday’s board meeting.
The county received twobids, a $669,000 offering from Sunflower County-based David Smith Construction and a $678,739 bid from Cleveland-based Timbo’s Construction.
Even the lowest comes in much higher than the $450,000 budget that was set by the board prior to advertising for bids.
The original budget apparently was $350,000.
“That’s way beyond our budget, almost twice what our budget is,” said District 1 Supervisor Glenn Donald.
There were a number of ideas floated that could possibly push the project forward, despite the high dollar figures.
Architect Emily Poole said that in-kind work, which would be done by county employees, was not included in the bids.
Donald asked if the construction companies would have bid on the project had in-kind work been included, and Poole said the companies suggested they would not have bid on the shelter.
“I just don’t know why they wouldn’t bid on it with in-kind work,” Donald said. “In-kind work saves a lo too money.”
Poole said the bids are good for 45 days, and it may be possible to scale back on some of the work that is being bid on.
“We can reach out to both of these contractors to see if there may have been something we could have done differently to bring costs down,” she said. “They may have some ideas.”
The final idea was to ask Rep. Otis Anthony to lobby for money at the end of the current legislative session to help shore up the budget.
A motion was made by Donald to continue with the county’s $450,000 commitment to the shelter and ask Anthony to try and come up with the remaining balance, which would include architecture fees as well.
The motion passed with District 3 Supervisor Ben Gaston being the only one opposed.
