Nye County school board trustees thought they'd save some money going out for a second round of bids for the construction of Floyd Elementary School.

Instead, bids opened last Thursday came in $3 million higher.

Straub Construction, of Perris, Calif., submitted the low bid of $13.23 million for construction of the school, near Terrible's Lakeside Casino on Thousandaire Boulevard and Homestead Road. The other bidder, West Coast Construction, of Reno, bid $14.3 million.

Bidders were asked to submit a deductible alternative for modular classroom units that would strip away $670,775 from the Straub Construction bid and $1.9 million from the West Coast Construction quote. That would lower the Straub low bid to $12.5 million.

"We were hoping it was going to be less than $11 million," Nye County School District Buildings and Grounds Director Bob Whimpey said.

The Nye County School District last year installed 21 modular buildings at various schools around Pahrump Valley. Whimpey said the combined square footages of those modular buildings would be equal to the size of a new elementary school.

Whimpey said the cost of both materials and labor has gone up. The contractors have also been busy, he said. The low bidder the first time, Rafael Construction Co., has $84 million in projects pending and chose not to submit a second bid.

Whimpey said he'll recommend doing some "value engineering" to get the price down.

"This is something I need to talk to our attorney about," Whimpey said. "We have a tight budget."

The school district building committee meets tomorrow. Nye County school board members will meet in a special session Friday.

School board chief Debbie Wescoatt said recently the school district hoped to save money on the construction by working with a company that manufactured permanent modular buildings.

The last elementary school to be built in Pahrump Valley was Hafen Elementary, which opened its doors September 2003 on Hafen Ranch Road and Kellogg Road on the far south side of Pahrump.