School board awards contract for TMS locker room, voc-ag bathroom

The Hot Springs County School Board on May 19 awarded the bid to remodel the Thermopolis Middle School locker rooms, and install a new vocational-agricultural bathroom.

After Board Clerk Joe Martinez made the motion to approve the contract, which Board Treasurer Nichole Weyer seconded, Hot Springs County School District Business Manager Chauncy Johnson explained, “As soon as the board approves this recommendation. we’ll be in communication with the contractor, most likely tomorrow morning.”

Johnson added, “They’re looking at getting started as soon as possible, once school is out, which is also tomorrow, so it’s all lining up well for them.”

According to Johnson, “The only thing pending on some of these items is making sure they can get partitions and things like that ordered, then hoping we don’t run into supply chain issues, and are able to get those things in stock.”

Johnson anticipated demolition would start within the first week of June.

When Board Trustee Jennifer Axtell asked whether Martinez’s motion needed to name the contractor being awarded the bid, Johnson replied, “I don’t think so, as long as we’ve got it documented, but it never hurts,” before naming the contractor as Fox General Construction of Ten Sleep, Wyoming.

Axtell amended Martinez’s motion to mention Fox General Construction, after Superintendent Dustin Hunt suggested it to Board Chair Sherman Skelton, “just to be safe,” and both the original motion and the amendment were approved unanimously.

Johnson then recounted how the Hot Springs County School District has attempted to provide a workforce stabilization and retention payment, “similar to what we’d done in December,” although that payment “was pretty easy to justify, because of school disruptions” starting in the spring of 2020, then continuing as late as last fall.

This time, Johnson recommended paying $1,000 per staff member, to all regularly scheduled full-time and part-time staff who were working as of Jan. 2, 2022, and have not resigned, “so anybody that worked all spring semester, and is planning to come back in the fall.”

Johnson acknowledged the district has “struggled with a high level of turnover,” notably in its paraprofessional positions, and he further recommended paying $1,000 per retiree out of the general fund, to retiring employees who were working as of Jan. 2, 2022, through the end of either the spring semester or their fiscal year.

“They’ve put in a lot of effort for the district, throughout their careers and especially this pandemic, but it’s more difficult to justify paying them out of SR funds (rather than the general fund) because they won’t be coming back in the fall,” Johnson said, while noting those payments would be made May 27.

Per the bid award, this payment was also approved unanimously by the board, following a motion by Martinez that was seconded by Weyer, but only after Hunt carefully stipulated that the motion reiterate that it would be a stabilization and retention payment, “because it is for those federal funds,” and “it is about keeping staff here, going into the next year, where there’s a labor shortage and competitiveness.”