LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Same plan for $2 million?

Dear Editor,

Obviously, I shouldn’t have chosen the teaching field and, instead, become an architect. Or at least, joined the architectural firm that does business with CCPS [Chesterfield County Public Schools].

As I understand your school construction story [Dec. 6], CCPS paid $2,098,035 for the plans for Cosby High School, which is going to be the identical plan for the new Clover Hill High School. Except [the architects] got paid $2,024,195 for the same plan! No work and another $2 million?

That money could have gone to increase teacher pay to make us more competitive with Henrico County and [the city of] Richmond.

A Chesterfield teacher

According to Debra Marlow, CCPS director of community relations, “If we had built the two schools together, we would have saved nearly $1 million in architectural and engineering fees. [But] three years have elapsed and the plans now have to be revised to meet the 2003 International Building Code and include the as-built changes to the design that occurred during the construction of Cosby. Savings that would have resulted from concurrent bidding and construction administration are no longer available. Using the same basic design, however, still saved us considerable dollars. The total cost of architectural and engineering fees for the two schools would likely have been over $6 million as opposed to the $4.1 million we will have spent when the two schools are completed.”

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