The Whitefish School Board Oct. 23 approved its contract with Langlas & Associates for work on the high school project.

The contract for $20,000 is for preconstruction services, which includes the design and bid phase of the project. A separate contract will need to be approved for the company to continue during the actual construction phase.

Langlas is currently serving in the role of general contractor/construction manager for roughly six months and then will likely be under contract as the construction manager at risk, which involves a commitment that the company will deliver the project for a guaranteed maximum price.

“The biggest meat of the contract will happen after the project goes to bid and we’ve got a guaranteed maximum price,” said Bayard Dominick, the district’s consultant on the project. “Right now this is for preconstruction services with a fixed fee.”

Dominick said after the final design and bid process is completed the contract will be updated to become a construction manager at risk contract. That’s anticipated to happen next year.

The district completed a three-step process in selecting Langlas, of Billings and Bozeman, that included a request for qualifications, request for proposals, and formal interviews. Six firms responded to the RFQ and were subsequently interviewed. The district’s oversight and budget committee for the project conducted interviews and checked references for each firm.

According to the school board, it was the interview portion of the process that swayed the decision to hire Langlas. The company was found to be a firm that “is passionate about schools” and has worked on several school projects.

Langlas has been working with the district as part of the preconstruction phase to adjust the high school design to fit in the $19 million budget. The project is going through revisions based upon construction expense estimates for the project to cut about $1 million from the current cost estimate.

Trustee Dave Fern noted that the district would be finalizing the design at this point no matter which firm was selected as the contractor.

“What we want to avoid is getting substantially into the project and then saying we can’t afford the windows or the furnace,” Fern said. “What this does is it flushes all this stuff out before you begin work.”

Dominick said the contractor is making recommendations for changes before designs are finalized so final costs will be in line with estimates.

“We don’t want to get into construction and suddenly we can’t afford part of the project,” he said. “Because the general contractor has been involved in this for months before bid they can’t come back and say something wasn’t in the drawings. They’ve been going through this in great detail and making sure there’s no gaps in the bid packages.”