SAN ANGELO, TX — The San Angelo Independent School District Board of Trustees voted unanimously Monday morning to approve a $305,000 change order for the ongoing Central Oakes sewer line replacement project.
During the special meeting held at 8 a.m. at the SAISD Administration Building, trustees reviewed the proposed change to Bid #25-001, which covers additional work needed after construction crews discovered the existing drain lines were too deteriorated to connect to newly installed floor drains.
SAISD Board Treasurer Bill Dendle, Board President Dr. Taylor Kingman, and Superintendent Dr. Christopher Moran listen as Director of Purchasing Jason Henry displays a rusted section of pipe during a presentation on the $305,000 sewer line change order at a special board meeting on June 2, 2025.
Jason Henry, SAISD’s Director of Purchasing, told board members the district consulted with the contractor, Precision Plumbing Solutions, and engineering firm Parkhill. It was determined that 200 additional feet of tunneling would be required beneath the kitchen floor to replace failing drain lines.
The change order includes costs for bonds, permits, tile work, flowable fill, and the installation of a new grease trap. Henry said the work is necessary to ensure the project is completed before the start of the upcoming school year.
“I don’t think any of us saw that we’re gonna have a change order for $300,000 on the plumbing,” said Board President Dr. Taylor Kingman. “But the reality is, this is what happens with working with older buildings.”
Kingman also provided broader context, recalling that three years ago, the board had already identified the sewer system as a potential risk when evaluating the Central campus property.
“We looked at the sewer line and the possible potential for increasing cost of this project,” he said, adding that concern over infrastructure was part of why students were moved from the Freshman Campus to the main Central campus.
He said “historic overlays and other things… have been placed on the district,” limiting flexibility with the property. As the district prepares to begin bond-funded work, Kingman stressed the need to anticipate hidden costs and structure future projects carefully.
“As we move forward with our bond projects,” he said, “we need to be very careful to, one, be using our construction manager that we are already recruiting, but two, in how we set up our projects… to be good stewards of the taxpayer dollars to make sure that our taxpayers do not get put on the hook for things that are found and not expected.”
Board Treasurer Bill Dendle noted that consolidating programs at Central will help reduce long-term costs by allowing the district to abandon older, more maintenance-intensive buildings.
"One silver lining in the project is that we will be abandoning some of the older facilities that we are in to consolidate some programs here," he said. "So the maintenance that would be required to continue to maintain those buildings that we're moving out of is going to be a savings cost."
Board Secretary Gerard Gallegos also suggested that future large-scale projects use a construction manager at risk (CMAR) model to provide cost certainty and protect the district from similar surprises.
"If we were to use the 'construction manager at risk' on this job, the contractor or the construction manager would be paying the 305,000, not the district, because they would have given us a guaranteed maximum price on this," Gallegos said. "But I think CMAR going forward on anything, a big project like that is our best choice, construction manager at risk, because that way the school district isn't having to pay an additional, like this, $305,000."
Dendle made the motion to approve the change order, which was seconded by Gallegos. The measure passed 6–0.
You can watch the meeting below:
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