The Yukon government was too quick to toss out plans for the F.H. Collins Secondary School reconstruction, the vice-president of the lowest bidding company told the Star Tuesday.

Adjustments could have been made to the $3.5-million design to bring the estimated cost closer to the government's defined budget, said Michael Kazda, the vice-president and Edmonton-area manager of EllisDon Corp.

But the government didn't make any effort to discuss those options with contractors after all three bids came in over-budget .

EllisDon, and the company's local partner Ketza Construction, put in the lowest bid for the reconstruction at $47.78 million, coming in about $10 million over the government's estimated budget of $38.6 million.

EllisDon has not received official word their bid had been rejected.

The government announced it was abandoning the design in favour of a pre-designed campus-style school on March 11.

YTG has not released cost-saving estimates, but officials have said they expect the savings from the pre-designed school versus the tendered design to be significant.

"We fully expect them to come back to us because it's not abnormal that projects come in over budget. It's quite normal for us to meet with owners after tenders close to review cost saving ideas,” said Kazda.

"Several million could be saved simply by deleting the geothermal system and changing the school layout to avoid the requirement for a temporary gym,” he added.

Jennifer Gehmair, a Department of Highways and Public Works communications analyst, said today there is a notification process in place.

Contractors will be sent a formal letter within the next week, although legally, the government has 60 days to notify the bidders.

Contract law prevents cost-saving negotiations, YTG argues.

Under contract law, the government is only able to renegotiate bid prices by 10 per cent, said Gehmair, but that wouldn't account for the gap between the government's budget and the bid estimates.

"A savings put forward by a contractor might not result in a true cost savings for (the) Yukon government,” she added.

"If you consider operational, functional, performance factors or if any key elements were eliminated, there may not be a true savings as far as the design goes. There may also be a cost associated to a redesign should changes be considered.”

But Kazda said as far as he's aware, it's good practice to re-tender a project if the price is renegotiated by more than 15 per cent, but not actually law.

He added that the government didn't have to accept a bid before investigating possible cost-savings; they could have had those discussions with all three bidders.

Design didn't warrant abandonment

While Kazda noted he's not an expert on school design, he didn't notice anything particularly unusual about the F.H. Collins design that would have caused the government to abandon it at this late stage.

"I didn't see anything unusual about the design except maybe the temporary gym that was included in our budget.

"We think the design could be modified so that you could use the existing gym until a new gym was ready,” he said.

To scrap a design at this point is frustrating for contractors, who have spent months developing a bid, losing opportunities to bid on other projects, he added.

Kazda estimates it cost EllisDon and all their contractors and subcontractors, combined, more than $500,000 to bid on the F.H. Collins reconstruction.

The EllisDon bid included numerous local subcontractors, not to mention a strategic alliance with Ketza.

"It's a win-win for the local economy, in that they get a school that they need and they're using the majority of local expertise and local labour,” said Kazda.

"The Yukon government has invested way more into the design of this thing. Typically designs are about 10 per cent of the value of the project, so they probably invested four to five million into the design of this thing. You're throwing that away as well,” he noted.

The design work cost the government $3.5 million. Another $2 million has been spent on phases one and two infrastructure work for sewer, water and fibre optic lines.

It's not clear at this point how much of that work will be used when the new design is chosen.

Opposition calls design-scrap a ‘knee-jerk reaction'

The government should have had a contingency plan in the event that, as has happened, the bids came in over-budget, Jim Tredger, the NDP's Education critic, told the Star today.

"They should have had some way of going back to the contractors and saying, ‘OK, we wanted this but can we get away with this, what kind of things can we do to save money?'” he said.

"From my understanding, that wasn't done, because less than a month ago the minister (Education Minister Scott Kent) said the project was on budget and on time. All of a sudden, we're scrapping the whole thing.

"Now, without consultation, without going back and looking at ways to make it work, boom; we're on a new track. This is a knee-jerk reaction.”

Both Tredger, and interim Liberal leader Sandy Silver said the government should have gone back to the contractors who bid to determine if and where savings could be found.

"Who knows how much money you can or cannot save? But once again, you never know if you don't have those conversations,” said Silver.

Calls to cabinet communications to speak with Kent were directed to Cynthia Tucker, the assistant deputy minister of Public Works.

Tucker could not be reached for comment before this afternoon's deadline.