NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — The task force looking at middle and high school regionalization is going back out to bid for a consultant after both remaining bids came in over budget.

 

The Northern Berkshire Regionalization Study Steering Committee opened the bids on Wednesday night, with Vaysen Studio of Syracuse, N.Y., bidding $213,400 and the joint bid of Academic Discoveries of Boylston and The Management Solution of Auburn at $172,000.

 

Both came in higher than the $125,000 the committee has available.

 

After some discussion, the committee, meeting at McCann Technial School, voted unanimously to retool the request for proposals and send it back out to bid.

 

"To me, it's as simple as that. The price has exceeded the available funding, and now we're going to create something that has smaller scope so that, so that it can fit," said Mount Greylock Regional Schools Superintendent Joseph Bergeron. "And then that means, hopefully, you're just deducting from the work you already got through, rather than trying to do something completely different."

 

The group is charged with overseeing a study of secondary education in North Berkshire and includes Mount Greylock, North Adams Public Schools, Hoosac Valley Regional School District and the five member districts of the North Berkshire School Union. The consultant will look at the educational and financial aspects, as well as such areas as special education, enrollment, transportation and long-term sustainability.

 

The initiative is an outgrowth of declining enrollment and rising costs. For example, Drury High and Hoosac Valley High together graduated 116 seniors last year; in 2008, Drury alone graduated 133.

 

Both of the bidders were ranked according to a pre-established criteria, with each member of the committee providing their assessment. Vaysen had an average score of 44.6 and Academic Discoveries of 50.4.

 

"So looking at this pricewise and scorewise, Academic Discoveries group is the clear winner but over our earmark," said Hoosac Superintendent Aaron Dean. "We have two options here. We can move forward with the winning bidder and talk about how we can fill in the funding or look for the difference of $47,000, or reject based on the fact that they didn't meet our budget."

 

Member Peter Breen, representing North Adams, asked if it was possible to renegotiate the cost with the low bidder, or if the members were up to asking their communities for money to fill the gap.

 

"We were all skeptical about, is this going to be enough money? And I wouldn't have a hard time speaking to people in North Adams of we're about $9,000 or $10,000 short," he said.

 

Carrie Burnett, grants, special projects and procurement officer for the North Adams schools, who was attending the meeting, said the standard was to negotiate modifying the RFP, not the bid.

 

"What you would want to do is reject all and then modify the proposal itself based on the quotes that came in," she said, adding that this would also give the bidders an opportunity to rebid the project.

 

It was also pointed out that if they voted to accept the bid, Clarksburg, as the fiscal agent, would be on the hook for the $47,000 if no other funding was made available.

 

"Clarksburg does not have the funding to cover that gap on its own," said member Daniel Haskins, chair of the town's Select Board.

 

The proposal itself may have been too broad, said John Franzoni, superintendent of the North Berkshire School Union, based on what he had heard secondhand from a group that didn't bid.

 

"The feedback I heard informally, not directly from them, was that they didn't have the capacity because the scope was too wide," he said.

 

North Adams Superintendent Timonthy Callahan said he hadn't heard that personally, but "we have some vendors that have done studies in the past, and I thought some of them might throw their hat in the ring, and I didn't get enough feedback ... now with the knowledge of the proposals, we can refine our scope be more targeted to what we actually want phase one to look like."

 

Burnett said she had sent out 13 packets to interested parties; only three responded with bids.

 

The third bidder, Berk12, was excluded because it had posted its bid, $149,500, in its presentation instead of in a separate sealed envelope. But, Vaysen was also voted to be excluded after the bids had opened because it failed to provide a required legal form; and it was pointed out by some that Academic Discoveries also didn't appear to provide the amount of community engagement expected. 

 

It did, however, offer a fairly detailed outline of costs and length of time for different phase of the study, as did Berk12. 

 

Dean said it would give the committee a starting point to reduce the scope and set up for a phased study that could proceed as more funding is obtained. The effort is being funded through state earmarks and grants. 

 

"I think by using the information that we have from the three proposals, we can have, I think a shorter timeline than the working group had, because now we have information to use for our advantage, to try and define what we want first phase to look like," Franzoni said. He noted that the Mohawk Trail regionalization study has gone through three separate phases.

 

Callahan and member Arleigh Cooper of Savoy pointed out that in the next RFP they could require an interview, as had been initially discussed; others thought they should also add in the amount they had available.