Sealed bids will be received by the Treasurer, Bowling Green City Schools, at 140 South Grove Street, Bowling Green, OH 43402, until 3:00 p.m., local time, on April 8, 2010, for a boiler replacement at Bowling Green High School, in accordance with the Drawings and Specifications prepared by Buehrer Group and Abatement Specifications prepared by Brumbaugh-Herrick, Inc. Bids will be opened and read immediately afterwards. The Architect/Engineer is Buehrer Group Architecture & Engineering, Inc. (direct all questions to Chris Gaffney), 314 Conant Street, Maumee, OH 43537; 419-893-9021; fax:  419-893-9027.  All questions regarding the Abatement should be directed to Brumbaugh-Herrick, Inc., 419-382-9574, the abatement consultant. 

A pre-bid meeting and walk-through will be held at 3:00 pm local time, on March 29, 2010, at Bowling Green High School; 530 West Poe Road; Bowling Green, OH 43402.

Copies of the bid and contract documents including instructions to bidders and specifications may be obtained, by mailing deposit of Twenty-Five Dollars ($25.00) in cash or check for each set, from the office of Buehrer Group Architecture & Engineering, Inc., 314 Conant Street, Maumee, Ohio 43537. NOTE: CASH DEPOSITS WILL NOT BE REFUNDED. If within ten (10) days after the opening of bids documents are returned undamaged, deposits paid by check will be fully refunded. The bid and contract documents are on file, for inspection, at the office of Bowling Green City Schools (the “Owner”) at 140 South Grove Street; Bowling Green, OH 43402 and at the office of Buehrer Group Architecture & Engineering, Inc., 314 Conant Street, Maumee, OH 43537

All bids must be accompanied by a Bid Guaranty in the form described in the Instructions to Bidders.

No Bidder may withdraw its bid within sixty (60) days after the bid opening. The School District reserves the right to waive irregularities in bids, to reject any or all bids, and to conduct such investigation as necessary to determine the responsibility of a bidder.

The Bowling Green Area Schools Food has been recognized by the Ohio Department of Education with a 2009 Stellar Award for Excellent School Nutrition.  ODE established the Stellar Awards in 2003 to recognize schools that use best practices to promote a healthy school nutrition environment.  Bowling Green Area Schools is one of only 22 recipients in Ohio and is the only school district in Wood County to receive a Stellar Award this year. The BG Food Service looks forward to another year of providing high-quality meals to students.

The Bowling Green School District is always looking for ways to be more efficient and effective in our fiscal policies. While it may seem like a minor issue to some, receipt of non-sufficient fund (NSF) checks is a time consuming and costly issue. As with any business, the Bowling Green School District has an obligation to our clients, the community taxpayers, to be fiscally accountable. Processing NSF checks can take valuable time from the school district personnel and when they remain uncollectible, NSF checks cost you, the taxpayer. To manage this process, our District will begin using FARS (Federal Automated Recovery Systems) on September 4, 2009 to protect the interest of all in our school system community against the time consuming and costly recovery of non-sufficient funds checks.

FARS utilizes the federal and state laws allowing the electronic recovery process of NSF checks which results in a high rate of recovery at no cost to the school district. The cost becomes the responsibility of those who wrote non-sufficient fund checks with the electronic recovery of the face amount of the check and the electronic recovery of the state fee from the bad check writer’s bank account. Utilizing FARS is an effort by the school District to be fiscally accountable in a more efficient and cost effective manner.

Bowling Green School District will continue to gladly accept checks. When a check is used as payment, the check writer authorizes us either to use information from the check to make a one-time electronic fund transfer from the check writer’s account or to process the payment as a check transaction. The check writer authorizes us to collect a $30 fee through an electronic fund transfer from the check writer’s account if the payment is returned unpaid.