The Ypsilanti Board of Education decided to postpone awarding bids to contractors for renovation work on the New Tech High School at Ardis, sending the discussion to the board’s operations committee.

The total amount of money the renovations to the school would cost is about $588,000, according to documents provided by the district.

Trustee Kira Berman said she was surprised to see the bids for the renovation project on the agenda for Monday’s meeting since the matter had not been put into committee first.

Kira Berman

“All of the bids go through committee and are reviewed by committee before they come to the complete board,” she said. “My understanding is this did not go through committee.”

The renovation work would be for the wings of the school, which only has a freshman class in the 2010-11 school year. The construction project does not have a firm deadline, but it is hoped the construction would be finished by the beginning of the 2011-12 school year.

Among the projects in the renovation are remodeling an existing toilet rooms into a new staff restroom, remodeling another existing toilet room and computer lab into new toilet rooms and remodeling existing storage rooms into new serving rooms.

Other projects are cutting open existing walls and installing new hollow metal borrowed lights along one corridor in the building, removing existing base and flooring at the platform and installing new base and flooring, and installing new sound panels in the cafeteria.

The final portions of the project are providing a new metal stud framed wall with a moisture and mold-resistant gypsum board, plumbing and electrical for new stacked washer and dryer and to provide new shelving in an existing storage room and new casework in another room.

Trustee Andy Fanta said he wasn’t sure if it was an emergency to vote to award the bids at Monday’s meeting, but was offended at the thought that an emergency had to be claimed to get the bids passed quickly.

“I see it as a vehicle to avoid the democratic process,” he said. “That’s the thing about the democratic process: It’s messy, it’s deliberative. As a board, we are charged with overseeing the district doing due diligence, and I think it doesn’t serve us well not to follow our processes.”

Fanta will set up a meeting of the school board’s operations committee in the near future to discuss bids. A meeting of the school board will be called to vote on the bids following that meeting.

The companies under consideration to be awarded bids are:

• Irish Construction for concrete work in the amount of $8,300
• Silverado Construction for masonry in the amount of $30,700
• Westwood Carpentry in the amount of $141,830
• Central Ceiling & Partition Inc. for drywall, insulation and acoustic work in the amount of $15,125
• Cohn's Commercial Floor Covering for flooring in the amount of $10,869
• Color Tech Painting in the amount of $2,008.50
• Fuller Heating Company for mechanical work in the amount of $293,100
• Great Lakes Power & Lighting for electrical work in the amount of $86,000

Trustee Sarah Devaney said she realized time was of the essence for the construction process but would appreciate the chance to ask her colleagues on the operations committee some questions about the bids.

“I’m on the instructional quality committee, not operations, so I would value my colleagues who are on that committee vetting it and getting back to me,” she said.

Kyle Feldscher covers K-12 education for AnnArbor.com. He can be reached at kylefeldscher@annarbor.com or you can follow him on Twitter.