MARYSVILLE – The Marysville School Board was stunned to find out March 21 that all the bids for a new Marysville-Pilchuck High School food commons came in over budget.

Pressed to make a decision anyway, board president Pete Lundberg said, “I’m just getting over the shock.”

The board will meet in a special meeting Wednesday to try to come up with a solution.

Assistant superintendent Ray Houser said the district could try to come up with the difference – $455,000; scale down the project; rebid the project; or drop it.

Finance director Jim Baker said funds could be transferred from other accounts, but Lundberg said he doesn’t like robbing Peter to pay Paul.

The district is receiving more than $7.5 million from the state and had hoped those funds would pay for it all. The estimated project cost by the district was only about $1,300 more than that.

But when the bids came in, Tiger Construction had the low bid of $8.24 million.

District officials explained that the analysis was off because of labor costs.

Architect Bill Chaput said part of the high cost has to deal with the district’s desire to expedite the process. He suggested one way to possibly save money would be to start construction later so the food commons could be done by the start of the school year in 2017.

Also discussed was reducing the square footage of the building. But to get to the amount needed, 2,650 square feet would need to be cut. That means some classrooms, the student store and offices would be taken out of the project, along with part of the kitchen and cafeteria itself.

“Do we really want to reduce” the size of the project? Houser asked.

Baker responded, “It reflects what little there is to cut. It’s thin, no question. Resources are getting tighter and tighter.”

He suggested money could come from the capital budget, general fund, interest earnings or even if the bonds pass next month for school replacement and improvements.

“We appreciate what the legislature did, but it wasn’t quite enough,” Baker said.