The USD 475 Board of Education will meet in a retreat Saturday at Acorns Resort and Conference Center.

The new Junction City High School project will be one of the discussion topics on the agenda, explained the school district’s chief operations officer, David Wild. “The Board is going to have the opportunity to look at some value engineering proposals, some scope changes, to continue to reduce the cost on the project before we settle on a final contract price.”

Wild would like to cut $6 million or possibly more to reduce the cost of the project. He said when he interviewed for the job he was asked how would control costs on the project and at the same time obtain what the district wanted. “It’s very simply by making sure that you price everything in a competitive market that you might want. Now we can work our way down from that bid structure, and eliminate the things we decide we really don’t want or don’t need and we’ll work our way down.

The retreat begins at 8 a.m. on Saturday.