The money would come from Rock County taxpayers if the county board approves the plan at its Nov. 19 meeting.
Rock County owns UW-Rock's land and buildings on Janesville's south side, and under a longstanding arrangement, the county is responsible for buildings and maintenance.
The FBI last year studied shootings at schools of all kinds from 2000 to 2013 and found they had become more frequent in recent years.
Ten people died and nine were injured in the Oct. 1 shooting on an Oregon community college campus.
Officials have been planning UW-Rock's upgrade since 2011. The original consultant went out of business, which delayed plans, according to county documents.
The systems — including installation of telephones in every classroom, something UW-Rock does not have now — could be ready sometime in summer 2016, officials said Tuesday at a meeting of the county board's general services committee.
The committee voted 4-1 to recommend the lower of two bidders on the project, Gilbank Construction of Clinton.
The “no” vote came from Edwin Nash of Janesville, who wanted more discussion of the project and to include a deadline for completion.
Rob Leu, manager of general services, said he would not recommend a deadline for this project because contractors will have to work around the campus schedule so as not to disturb classes.
Some board members have been dissatisfied with slow progress on removing the courthouse's decorative brick tower, which has been crumbling.
Tower removal was originally scheduled to be completed by Nov. 1, but the tower still stands. Leu said the company has come up against government safety requirements that take time to satisfy.
Committee member Tom Brien of Janesville objected when it was suggested the tower work could proceed during the winter.
Brien noted that the Court Street hill can be hazardous for drivers and could be more so with equipment blocking part of the street.
A capital improvements fund for UW-Rock will pay part of the safety upgrade bill. The administration recommends the remaining $550,000 come from the county sales tax.
Leu said the county has tried to fund building projects with the tax in order to avoid borrowing costs.
The only other bidder was Klobucar Construction of Beloit, which bid $1.18 million. The pre-bid budget estimate was $774,000.
One reason the bids came in higher than expected was a new standard for emergency notification not included in the original plans, according to a Sept. 10 memo from the project consultant.
The standard requires the ability to send emergency messages to anyone with a smartphone on the campus.
Also driving up costs were the addition of two touchscreen workstations, for a total of three, and trenching to move cameras from building roofs to light poles in the parking lot.
Included in the project are:
- New video-surveillance cameras to replace analog cameras now in place.
- An “emergency mass notification system," which will allow officials to broadcast security alerts to anyone carrying a smartphone on campus as well as through emails, texts, social media, handheld radios, administrative telephones, cable TV and fire-alarm speakers.
- One centrally located “code blue” pedestal where anyone could call in an emergency alert.
- A new fire-alarm system on the south side of campus, where the current system is more than 40 years old and can't be integrated into other systems, Leu said. The new fire alarm system is estimated to cost $239,000, or about a fifth of the project cost.
- The telephone system to include all classrooms.
- Door controls and monitoring system.
- A “duress” alarm system, which allows authorities to be notified with the touch of a button. Such buttons are sometimes referred to as panic buttons.
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