Unit 4 Oversight Committee Meeting

Last night there was a meeting of Unit 4's Referendum Oversight Committee whose goal is "to oversee the work of the project team at a high level and ensure community stakeholders and community members have a voice in the decisions being made as the design and construction projects proceed." From today's News-Gazette:

Growing Unit 4 referendum committee weighs in on Dr. Howard

...
Nine new members joined the previous six-member team to review the progress on the Champaign school district's varied multimillion-dollar construction projects.

Among the concerns raised Monday by the 15 committee members about the district's architectural, financial and construction processes:

— Stormwater drainage in the Dr. Howard neighborhood.

— Zoning discrepancies.

— The decision to make Dr. Howard a three-strand school...

Although Monday's presentation was light on financial detail, Unit 4 Chief Financial and Legal Officer Tom Lockman told the group that the next meeting would include more of that.

"The next time we meet, we will have much more significant information in terms of how we are tracking cost, how we are tracking arbitrage and how we are maintaining consistency on our budget processes," he said.

Keeping watch

With a $1.7 million budgeted bump in the cost of turning Dr. Howard Elementary into a full three-strand, K-5 facility, the total cost of Unit 4's six-school, two-fields project stands at $210.1 million. That includes $25 million from district reserves "and other available capital improvement funding sources as needed."

More details and additional information at the full article here.