A Missouri High School's Cost Nearly Doubled to $164.7M

A Missouri State Auditor review of the Francis Howell R-III School District⧉ found the final cost of the new Francis Howell North High School (FHN) came in at $164.7 million -- nearly double the $86.35 million publicized to voters as part of the district's Proposition S bond campaign, and an overrun equal to roughly a third of the entire $244 million bond program that estimate helped sell.▸ A July 2026 follow-up review⧉ found the district has since fixed some of what the original audit flagged, rating other recommendations still "in progress" nearly two years later.

Voters approved Proposition S, a $244 million bond issuance, in June 2020, with the largest single outlay earmarked for a new FHN building.▸ The district's own architect had put the building's cost at $93.5 million back in 2018 -- but Proposition S marketing materials publicized a lower figure, $86.35 million, the bottom of an $86.35-97.5 million range the architects had actually presented to a district committee. No one flagged the discrepancy, and the lower number stayed the public figure for roughly a year.

From there, the audit's own timeline⧉ shows internal estimates rising well before the Board found out.▸ The construction manager's working number reached $105 million by February 2021 and $116 million by May 2021 -- neither reported to the Board -- while the building's footprint had also grown from 380,000 to 410,000 square feet. In September 2021, when a Board member asked directly how much over budget the project would run, the former Chief Operating Officer would say only that costs were higher than projected, calling a specific estimate "short-sighted" -- even though he already knew the preliminary guaranteed maximum price (GMP) was at least $135 million.

A month later, another Board member asked for a rough percentage -- "are we talking 60-70 percent, [or] 10-20 percent?" -- and was again told no estimate could be given, despite construction bids having already been opened at a public meeting.▸ The final GMP, $164.7 million, wasn't presented to the Board until November 2021 -- over a year after construction had begun, and after the Board had already approved $38 million in bid packages without knowing the project's full cost.

The audit separately found the district limited competition when it picked a project manager for the Proposition S work.▸ A June 12, 2020 draft recommendation had one firm scoring highest, at 19 points, with its case built partly on agreeing to hire a former district employee for on-site work. On June 17, 2020 -- the day before the Board's scheduled vote -- district officials edited that recommendation to drop the top-scoring firm in favor of one that had scored only 16, without documenting why. The firm they landed on was owned by the former employee's brother. That same day, the former employee emailed that he and his company had always intended to work only with the district and wouldn't partner with another firm -- meaning the district's insistence on including him had limited the field to a single eligible firm from the start. The audit calls this, at minimum, the appearance of bias toward a former employee and his brother's firm.

The district's bond financing had a similar competition gap: it sold its bonds through private, negotiated sales rather than competitive ones, never solicited competing underwriting proposals, and took its financial advice from the same firm that underwrote the bonds and had worked with the district for at least 20 years.▸ That underwriter collected approximately $1.6 million in fees⧉ across the issuances. None of this violated Missouri law, which doesn't require competitive bond sales -- but the auditor notes competition is meant to help ensure the lowest financing costs and the best-qualified advisers, not just the most familiar ones.

The original December 2024 audit rated the district's overall performance "Poor," the audit's lowest tier.▸ A follow-up review⧉, with fieldwork completed by October 2025 and issued in July 2026, checked the district's progress. Some fixes have landed: a Purchasing Manager now oversees bid evaluation and Board recommendations, the district solicited and reviewed architectural qualifications before its next hire, and the attendance-code error that had overstated three high schools' hours by 3,075 combined and cost the district roughly $11,500 in excess state funding is corrected. Other items remain "in progress": capital-project reporting to the Board is more frequent but the underlying policy is still being rewritten, and a re-check of 2024-25 safety-drill records found 16 of 23 schools still had missing drills or documentation errors.

The construction overrun also has a cost measured in what didn't get built.▸ By March 2024, district officials had identified 71 originally planned Proposition S projects -- worth at least $56.18 million -- that won't be completed; 22 were deemed no longer needed, but the other 49 are still unresolved, pending further evaluation.