A quote that was never going to win
In June 2026 we quoted a courtyard pavilion for a middle school near Lansing. Twelve feet by sixteen, going onto a slab that was already there, and the district was buying the kit itself — so what they were buying from us was the installation, the fixings and the incidentals. The number was a little over fifteen hundred dollars.
A month later the answer came back, and it was one of the more gracious rejections we have had. The administration had spent the budget on concrete and fencing, both of which had overrun. The pavilion was not on the completion list any more. It would be in the future — maybe spring or summer of 2027 — and she would keep our details and be in touch.
Nothing was wrong with that quote. The price was not the problem, the scope was not the problem, and the person on the other end was not fobbing us off. The job died because it was asked about in June.
The calendar and the money are two different clocks, and they disagree
School facilities work runs on two calendars at once, and people outside districts tend to see only the first one.
The physical calendar is obvious. Anything that makes noise, dust, or a mess in a corridor has to happen in the ten or eleven weeks when the students are gone. Every district in this part of the state wants exactly those weeks, from the same small pool of contractors, in the same summer.
The financial calendar is the one that does the damage. The fiscal year runs July to June, and the money is committed early in it. By late spring most of what was going to be spent has been spent or spoken for, and the remainder is covering whatever has overrun — which on a buildings budget is usually sitework, because sitework is where the surprises are.
So a request raised in June is not being weighed against other projects. It is being weighed against a deficit. It loses, and it loses even when everyone involved thinks it is a good idea.
What that means in practice
The useful month to ask is February or March, for next summer. Not because contractors fill up — though they do — but because that is when next year's list is still genuinely open and the board is looking at it. A quote that exists in February is a line somebody can point at in a meeting. A quote that exists in June is a line somebody has to find money for.
This argues against our own interest in the short term, and we would rather say it than have the same conversation again next July. If you call us in June about summer work, the honest answer is often that the quote should be written to hold until the following spring. That is more use to you than one that expires before anybody is allowed to decide.
You probably do not have to bid it
The other thing that slows school repairs down is an assumption that everything needs a formal solicitation. It does not.
Under the Revised School Code a district has to seek competitive bids on construction, renovation, repair or remodeling only above a base figure that resets every October against the Consumer Price Index. For the fiscal year running October 2025 to September 2026 that base is $31,321.
A very large share of what sits on a buildings-and-grounds list is underneath that number: door hardware, drywall and paint, handrails, flooring repairs, gutters and roofline, classroom fixtures, the accumulated small stuff. Below the base, a district can buy on quotes.
Two caveats worth saying out loud. The first is that your own internal policy may be stricter than the statute — plenty of districts require more process than the law does, and that is entirely their right. The second is that the figure moves every year, so the number your business office holds today is the one that counts, not the one in this paragraph next October.
The funding question that changes the price
Michigan reinstated prevailing wage on state projects effective 13 February 2024. For schools it reaches, broadly, projects that are competitively bid under the School Code and paid for in whole or in part with State School Aid or qualified bond money. There is an exemption for work financed with qualified bonds that voters approved before the law took effect.
What matters for a quote is simply this: the funding source, not the type of work, decides whether prevailing wage applies — and the district determines it, not the contractor. Where it applies, the labor line goes up, sometimes substantially, and certified payroll records have to be kept and submitted, with online submission required from April 2026.
Tell a contractor at quote stage and it is priced in. Tell them after award and the number has to change, which is an awkward conversation nobody needs.
The background check is a scheduling problem, not a paperwork problem
Anyone who will be working regularly and continuously in a school building has to clear a fingerprint-based criminal history check through the Michigan State Police before they start, and that applies to a contracted person exactly as it applies to an employee.
The part contractors get wrong is who holds what. The district submits the check and the district receives the report. A private contractor may not receive or retain that information — we are told the person is approved or is not, and nothing else, and we are not entitled to a reason.
It is not difficult. It is simply not instant, and the ordinary way it goes wrong is that nobody starts it until the crew is being scheduled. Submit the names when the quote is accepted and it never becomes the thing holding up a start date.
Let the district buy the materials
The pavilion quote was structured the way a lot of school work should be: the district bought the kit on its own account and bought only the labor from us.
That is usually the better arrangement for a school. It keeps the purchase inside the district's own records and its own vendor relationships, it avoids a contractor markup on materials, and districts can often buy better than a small contractor can anyway. What the contractor quotes is then labor, fixings and incidentals — a smaller, simpler number — and the quote should say plainly what has to be on site before anybody arrives, and who carries the cost if it is not.
Where that one is now
Still open, as far as we are concerned. The follow-up is diarized for early February 2027 — before the budget gets committed again, which is the entire point of this article.