'aec Firms Need To Understand The School Business'

摘要

Roy J. Sprague: The national economy is the big issue, of course, but there are also some positives for us, at least in Texas. When you have a slowdown, you have more resources available for school construction, and that can lead to a stabilization of costs. In Houston, we have one of the more stable cost structures in the country, about $130/sf, so we can get solid contractors and subs who will give us better pricing. The downside is that you may get contractors who don't understand the school business-the budgetary process, capital funding vs. M&O and how that works. We just passed a $700 million operating budget, but that's for operations, not construction. A school district can be a bureaucracy and moves slower than the private sector, but we have to abide by state law.