School Board goes with ‘guaranteed’ bid for phone system

The New Hampton School Board doesn’t often accept a “higher bid” when it awards contracts, but it did so on Monday night.The board voted to accept the a bid for a little more than $75,000 from New Hampton-based Robinson Telecommunications for a phone system that will go into the district’s new middle school, gymnasium and vocational agriculture and industrial technology center that will open in August.New Hampton had received a bid for a little more than $63,000 from CEC, a company based out of Dubuque.But CEC officials made their bid contingent on that if there were issues with the wiring to connect the new system to the current ones at New Hampton Elementary and New Hampton High, it would bill the district for those extra costs.“Basically, the board decided to go with the guaranteed bid because that way we’ll know the total cost up front,” Jurrens said.— For more on this story, see the April 5 New Hampton Tribune.