Bid On Culinary Arts Kitchen $200K Over Budget

The White County Board of Education weighing its options after bids for a new kitchen came in some $200,000 over the proposed budget.

Director of Schools Kurt Dronebarger told the School Board Thursday night time is running out on the $450,000 grant for the culinary arts program facility. Dronebarger said they can choose to hold off and wait to do the expansion, but that may spell trouble for the future of the program.

“We can punt the idea, but not, not doing this in some regards, you know, I’ve talked to Mr. (Lane) Ward about it, is almost signaling the end of a program,” Dronebarger said. “Because if we can’t invest in this and do it with quality, I don’t know if we’re going to, if we can sustain it because we just don’t have the facilities.”

The board agreed to table the matter with the intention of considering options and then calling a special meeting to take action. Dronebarger said they have looked for ways to reduce the overall cost of the project, but he said there is little that can be done without reducing the quality of the program.

“We can change the flooring, we can remove a wall, but you might get, maybe you might get close to half of that $200,000 back before you really compromise the integrity of the program,” Dronebarger said.

Dronebarger said if they choose to forgo the project they will be giving up the $450,000 because it was specifically allotted to the culinary arts program. Finance Director Chad Marcum said the bid will expire on July 30.

Dronebarger said they have some $300,000 in their capital fund balance remaining from previous projects that they could use to make up the difference without severely affecting this year’s deficit budget.

“If the school system wants to come up with this $200,000 that we’re short, you’re going to get $450,000, and for $200,000 you’re going to be able to build a state-of-the-art kitchen that will not exist anywhere, from what I’m told, pretty much between Nashville and Knoxville,” Dronebarger said.

Dronebarger said the culinary arts program has an important place in the district’s overall CTE program.

“Every restaurant-type job can be trained in this facility,” Dronebarger said. “And, you know, that industry is growing in this area, in this region, so there are jobs there we can train students for. We feel like it’s important, or we wouldn’t have the program.”

Dronebarger said the new kitchen would be installed in the old meat section of the former Food Lion building the district purchased about eight years ago.

“There is a whole third of that building in the back that’s open, it’s unfinished, and we left it that way so we could grow into it,” Dronebarger said. “So this would be that back right corner. It would be back behind where the existing STEM lab is now.”

Dronebarger said he has talked with district staff about renovating the culinary arts program’s current space, but he said that solution poses its own problems.

“Currently the culinary arts program is in the academic wing, in the lower portion, but you’ve, we’ve talked about this subject before, there’s just a lot of mechanical, electrical, and plumbing issues in that building,” Dronebarger said. “Just to get electricity to the quantity that we need it would be very, very expensive.”

School Board Member Sherrie Stone asked if they could rebid for the project, but Chairman Bob Young said that would likely increase the overall price.