Isle of Wight County’s School Board is hoping to cut costs by awarding piecemeal contracts to multiple vendors for the replacement of Smithfield High School’s and Windsor High School’s tracks.

The School Board had included $820,000 in its 2024-25 budget, intending the amount to cover both schools based on estimates of just over $400,000 per track Isle of Wight County Schools had received last year.

As of October, the division had received per-school bids roughly double the expected cost.

“Before proceeding with the project, we were informed that it was necessary to conduct a core testing to the asphalt and the stone layers of the track,” Deputy Superintendent Christopher Coleman told the School Board on Nov. 14.

Core testing, Coleman said, involves measuring the thickness of the rubber, asphalt and stone layers so that when the asphalt is milled, or scraped off, the work won’t penetrate the sub base.

“When you mill over the track it’s going to go down 1.5 inches so if some area of the track is less than 1.5 inches that portion has to be redone,” Coleman said.

Samples taken from the Smithfield and the Windsor tracks each showed areas already worn down more than 1.5 inches below the top layer, meaning these sections can’t be milled and repaved the same as the others.

“Once we sent off these coring samples to the companies that are already bid, the cost doubled,” Coleman said. “We went from $400,000 per track to close to $800,000 and even higher for each track.”

The School Board’s plan to keep the project closer to its original budget involves farming out the removal of the existing rubber surface, milling the asphalt sublayer down 1.5 inches and repaving the track and reapplying a new final layer of rubber to the resurfaced track each to a different contractor.

“So instead of one package, we decided to break it down so we can try to get the cost lower,” Coleman said. “In this process most of the bigger companies, they did not want to subcontract out in small portions. … All of the 1.5 and lower, those are the areas that are going to be replaced. Everything else can be milled down and we can move forward.”

On Coleman’s recommendation, the board voted unanimously to award Richmond-based Precision Athletics Inc. contracts for the rubber resurfacing of the tracks at both high schools in the amount of $334,398.81. The work won’t be able to start until March due to the final layer of coating needing seven days without rain and temperatures above 60 degrees.

Contracting the track projects piecemeal should keep the total cost for each school below $450,000, Coleman said.

“It could be lower, but once again ,I can’t lock in all of the prices,” Coleman said. “I can only lock in the prices that the vendors will allow me to lock in.”

A cost of $450,000 per school still puts the project roughly $80,000 over budget, but Coleman said the plan is to use roughly $90,000 in savings from recently completed renovations to each school’s football field to cover the overage so the School Board will not need to request additional funds from county supervisors.

Smithfield High School’s track is currently unusable. Coleman said that the project would entail both schools’ tracks being certified by the Virginia High School League, which will allow Smithfield to once again host home track meets.