Skip to main content
Portland Public Schools officials have spent months debating how to trim the price tags on three high school rebuilds included in the $1.83 billion bond going to voters in May. A new memo shows the fretting did not translate into cutting all possible costs.
District officials told the School Board on April 8 that they could trim between $33 million and $67 million off the grand total. That’s, at best, less than 5% of total costs and would still put budgets for Cleveland, Ida B. Wells and Jefferson high schools at close to half a billion dollars each.
It’s also on the low end of an estimate from Feb. 11, when School Board members said they’d be interested in saving money by reducing square footage, reevaluating the need for teen parent and health centers, and finding alternatives to LEED Gold standards. At the time, PPS chief operating officer Dan Jung said he tentatively hoped to shave between $20 million and $40 million from each project.
But an April 18 written update to the School Board explaining the cost savings that PPS officials did find shows that even as square footage was reduced, two of the three high schools will still have teen parent centers and all three will have health centers. On top of that, there’s no mention of alternatives to LEED Gold certifications.
In the new memo, Jung wrote that the team is still working on finding additional cost savings by evaluating insurance requirements in contracts and finding alternatives to structural and mechanical systems.
But the memo revealed another challenge: Redesigns with savings in mind have, in some cases, cost the district more.
“Some costs have increased, including design fees to make changes,” Jung wrote, adding that because projects were paused, construction will be delayed and could escalate costs.
On Tuesday, school board member Julia Brim-Edwards expressed her frustration that there would be no board discussion about the written memo. The Feb. 11 board resolution asked a district official to update the board on the status of designs and projected cost reductions, with time “available for questions and discussion.”
At the meeting, School Board Chair Eddie Wang abruptly closed the meeting, ignoring Brim-Edward’s request for a discussion about the bond.
“We passed a resolution in which we were supposed to have a presentation and an opportunity for discussion and Q&A about the bond,” Brim-Edwards said at the meeting. “I think it’s disappointing that it unilaterally got taken off, something that the board passed as part of a resolution.”