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LANSDALE — Three votes last week moved a planned North Penn School District health care clinic ahead, while some unusual timing will be needed ahead of the next step.

School board members heard an update on that clinic on Monday night, and the steps staff will take ahead of the next board vote in mid-August to keep the clinic on schedule.

“It would be in our best interests to try to get this awarded on the 18th, so we can get the contractor rolling in preparation of the modular buildings arriving sometime in late fall,” said district Director of Facilities and Operations Tom Schneider.

In June the school board’s facilities and operations committee voted ahead three action items related to the clinic, which has been discussed since fall 2020 for the district to provide employees, their families, and possibly students to access health services at a local location, aimed at reducing projected health care costs long-term. District staff visited other similar clinics in 2021, vetted firms to operate it, chose a nationwide firm to run North Penn’s clinic in December 2021, and in March staff reported that talks had begun with some suppliers of the needed prefabricated buildings, but with timelines projected to deliver in 2023.

During their July 21 meeting, the school board voted to approve three action items related to the clinic, one to award the modular building contract and two others finalizing development and stormwater agreements with Lansdale Borough. Ahead of those votes, district CFO Steve Skrocki said the modular contractor is anticipating being able to deliver the building itself “by December of this year.”

“So our current expectation is that the health care center will be open, for those employees that are on the district’s health care plan, and their dependents, by the beginning of January 2023,” he said.

Staff continue to seek grant funding to offset the costs of the center, including the roughly $851,000 contract awarded for the modular construction, and Skrocki told the board that two grant applications have been field so far, one for funding through Montgomery County and another through a private source, with a third seeking state funding coming soon.

“And that’s a large grant, that’s a $1 million-plus grant, so we are still pursuing grant opportunities to help offset the costs of construction,” he said.

Skrocki added that district staff and national provider Everside, the firm chosen to operate the clinic, have already interviewed potential nurse practitioners who could staff the center, offering a contract to their top choice, and that person will start working as an assistant at another Everside clinic this fall.

“Lots of research, lots of presentations, lots of interviews with the companies, and site visits and so forth, and now I think we can all see that this is really coming together,” Skrocki said.

Board member Elisha Gee cast the only vote against those three items during the July 21 meeting, saying she hoped Skrocki’s projections of future savings do pan out.

“I certainly am supportive of the health care center being successful, but I voted no from the beginning because I do not believe that we need to get into the healthcare business, with all that we have before us in terms of facilities,” Gee said.

“I do look forward to Mr. Skrocki proving me wrong, which he probably will, and I hope that he does, because I do think if it does come to fruition in the way that Mr. Skrocki has described, then it certainly will benefit our community. I hope that is the case, I’m just a little bit skeptical still, regarding our embarking on this, and the timing of this,” she said.

During the July 21 meeting, Skrocki said the next part of the project up for board approval would be a contract for the site work, to prepare the area adjacent to Penndale Middle School between the auditorium entrance and a nearby parking lot for the building to be installed. Schneider gave an update on that site work contract on July 25, saying a first round of bids did not go as expected.

“We were hoping to have the bid opening on July 21. We had the pre-bid meeting a week prior to the bid date, and there was only one general contractor, and one electrical contractor that received the documents, and only one person showed up,” he said.

“So we felt it prudent to extend the bid date, contact (more) contractors, to beef up some of the interest for the project,” Schneider said.

Doing so has resulted in a new project bid opening date of Aug. 11, a week before the next board action meeting on Aug. 18, but also before the next facilities and operations committee meeting scheduled for Aug. 29. Skipping the committee review may make sense, Schneider told the committee, due to the tight timing involved.

The facilities and operations committee members then voted to allow staff to advertise the site work contract for bids again, with the goal of having a bid award ready for the full board meeting on Aug. 18.

North Penn’s school board next meets at 6 p.m. on Aug. 9 and the facilities and operations committee next meets at 7 p.m. on Aug. 29; for more information visit www.NPenn.org.

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