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OntaBuild Research / Arizona · K–12 construction
A concentrated contractor sample raises questions about competition and cost. Here is what the records show—and what they cannot establish.
Concentration is evident in this sample. Statewide overpayment is unestablished. Testing the connection requires bidder scores, comparable scopes and final payments.
Inspect the aggregate, public awards, district records and legal outcomes below. DataBEX remains aggregate-only; linked documents come from public sources.
Compare project count with estimated value, then check geography. Neither measure is statewide market share.
Switch measures to compare project participation with recorded project estimates. These categories count each entry once.
“Linked” includes full co-listed teams. The combined trio counts each once, without allocating work or revenue between team members.
109 of 142 entries are in Maricopa County. Smaller and uneven regional samples limit statewide inference.
County shares use named entries with recorded geography. Missing locations and primes are not inferred.
Campus rebuilds, approval events and repair grants are different units. Keep their totals separate.
All six completed rebuilds involved the trio. Cherokee had five respondents: concentrated outcomes do not mean only three firms were eligible.
Seventeen regular-meeting minutes yield ten approvals across five suppliers, but only six project/program families. Multiple Galveston GMPs and overlapping CORE scopes cannot count as separate wins.
Approval values are not payments or final costs. Special meetings and delegated purchases were not reviewed.
The unaudited grant appendix covers $61.2m, 358 vendors and 1,039 projects, with different leaders: Progressive Services, Sun Valley Builders and GCON. Do not blend repair/trade work into large-campus shares.
15 inspected award or approval examples across 10 districts. A selected public evidence set, not a statewide denominator or a matched DataBEX extension.
AZPurchasing summaries identify selected winners and award dates. Prices, numerical scores and gated attachments were not verified; current and historical source routes may differ.
| Project / district | Named contractor | Date / event | Amount / basis | Primary evidence |
|---|
No examples match. Broaden the search or reset the examples.
Chandler: $41,989,861 is the Hartford Sylvia Encinas GMP approved on 10 December 2025, not necessarily the initial CMAR selection. Tucson: the $21,503,624 Via Ingresso base contract plus 2.5% contingency was approved in 2010, outside the 12 October 2016–12 October 2026 research window. It is retained only to demonstrate historical access.
Scottsdale’s partial evidence stays separate. The 15 May 2018 minutes give a $224,995 flooring approval and name painting contractors on different items. The flooring amount cannot be assigned to those painting contractors. This brings districts with inspected project-level evidence to 11, while the fully paired explorer remains 10.
The 572 index entries cover all procurement categories across 37 entities, including entities outside this cohort. They are not 572 construction awards or a complete historical archive. The index’s “expires” field is an expiration date, not an award date.
Find procurement, portal and board-record routes for 57 districts. A located route is not a verified complete award archive.
No districts match. Broaden the search or reset the directory.
No complete district history or numerical evaluation scores were verified. Madison, Oracle and Somerton have department/finance routes but no established standalone procurement page; Tucson’s vendor route was verified despite a retrieval limit.
State contracts and district frameworks are useful leads, not additional school-project awards or like-for-like prices.
Nine APP details were inspected: five CORE state projects, two historical McCarthy JOC agreements and two school-keyword false positives. Independent district construction coverage remains unestablished.
Bounded CHASSE and school/district searches established no independent district construction winner. This does not prove absence of awards.
McCarthy’s agreements began in 2017, with extensions through 2020. Registry $0 values are not zero payments; historical records do not establish a complete archive.
The 12 January 2024 determination records six respondents and three interviews: CORE 952/1,000, Concord 890 and Kitchell 886. These are state-project scores, not school-district scores.
Change Order 4 (27 April 2026) adds $309,117.21 to a $10,975,527 baseline. The revised $11,284,644.21 is not paid spending; the baseline was not independently verified as the initial award.
APP may present a CAPTCHA when opening records or documents.
| Contract / supplier | Scope | Contract start | Amount evidence |
|---|
| Query | Filters | Found / reviewed | Interpretation |
|---|
The 36 leads cover frameworks, professional services, maintenance and equipment. None was confirmed as an individual project award.
JOC spend totals $33,680,273 across five annual entries; year five ends at 14 August 2026. This is pool-level spending, not a project price or an amount awarded to every listed contractor.
Mesa source limits: values come from supporting workbook sheets, not the master tab. Cached values were not recalculated; linked contracts and board minutes were not independently checked. Dates can conflict or reflect renewals. Framework totals and funding allocations cannot be assigned to individual firms or projects.
The $1 million fencing record lists Phoenix Fence and Regal Fence with co-op marked “Yes”; Mesa’s lead-agency or participant role is not established. Do not assign $1 million to each firm. Labeled award dates can reflect renewal or inconsistent history, and an expiration date alone does not prove active performance.
Solicitations show eligibility gates, scored experience and entry alternatives. Actual evaluator scores are needed to test their effect.
Five continuous years in business is a pass/fail gate. Firm experience earns 25/100 points; personnel 35/100. Experienced principals may not satisfy the firm-age gate.
A new firm can fail despite experienced principals. The treatment of equivalent experience needs review.
Arizona K–12 CMAR experience earns 300/1,000 points. Phoenix history and district support are requested; these provisions do not establish a donation requirement.
These are local-portfolio preferences; they do not establish a donation requirement.
Firm experience and personnel each earn 250/1,000 points. Prior-district work is requested, but no explicit minimum or separate incumbency bonus appears. Interviews may replace initial scores.
No explicit prior-district minimum or separate incumbency bonus appears in these provisions. Interviews may replace initial scores.
The JOC RFQ allows firms above and below $20m annual volume, with up to two awards per category. Addenda and responses are needed to verify the final pool.
An experience loop has a mitigation. Addenda and awarded responses need reconciliation before asserting final pool size.
Vail accepts firm or principal experience. Whiteriver accepts applicable private-sector negotiated-GMP experience: alternatives to a public-school corporate résumé.
These provide alternatives to an exclusively public-school corporate résumé.
Personnel may list work performed at another company, a counterexample to firm-only experience requirements.
This is a counterexample to a firm-only experience requirement and should remain visible alongside the 2024 RFQ.
6 procurement examples displayed.
Arizona’s framework calls for maximum practicable competition and prohibits unduly restrictive specifications. CMAR commonly shortlists three to five firms, then negotiates with the highest-qualified. Apply the statute and rules effective on the procurement date; current rules cannot be substituted retroactively.
Civil resolutions, guilty pleas and dismissals carry different weight. These cases do not establish wrongdoing by CORE, CHASSE or McCarthy through association.
This is a dated evidence review, not a live court or audit feed. Open each case for the chronology, qualifications and original sources.
Phoenix Union reported personnel-audit findings and possible fraud; no criminal conviction was located. Buckeye’s compensation matter produced a $407,058 settlement repayment and voluntary dismissal. Isaac remained in receivership in its February 2026 update. EVIT’s campus-lease challenge was dismissed in August 2025 as time-barred; that ruling did not decide the merits, and a later appellate disposition was not established.
These matters are not added to a count of proven construction corruption.
One snapshot, explicit screening and separate count/value denominators. Sensitivity checks cannot cure missing statewide coverage.
Use the 12 August 2025 snapshot, not stacked exports. Earlier appearances are not repeat wins; 68 earlier-only IDs are excluded.
Require conventional district ownership, a raw K–12 tag and exactly “Project Completed” or “Under Construction”; exclude CTED and mixed statuses.
Of 142 entries, one lacks a named prime and one a valuation. Count uses 141 named entries; value uses 140 named-and-valued entries. Missing is not zero.
Keep one entry per ID and full co-listed teams. Missing phase links may conceal scope overlap; values are not disjoint spending or contractor revenue.
| Sample boundary | All entries | Trio / named | Count share | Value share |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Primary conventional districts | 142 | 115 / 141 | 81.6% | 89.9% |
| Exclude both co-listed teams | 140 | 113 / 139 | 81.3% | 89.6% |
| Known valuation at least $5m | 137 | 113 / 136 | 83.1% | 90.1% |
| Include eight CTED entries, single status | 150 | 122 / 149 | 81.9% | 90.1% |
| Exclude 10 largest valued entries | 132 | 105 / 131 | 80.2% | 86.9% |
DataBEX is a major-project leads database, advertised around projects of $5m or more, with some smaller records observed here. There is no known inclusion probability or complete statewide population. “Last Updated” is a research-update timestamp, not an award date. Source definitions: project profiles · product coverage.
To test the claim, match original RFQs and evaluator scores to contracts, amendments and final payments, then compare equivalent projects. Include evidence that weakens the hypothesis.
Scottsdale’s FY2023–24 Bond Oversight update describes an existing Smartsheet register of budgets, contracts and expenditures with supporting records. Request existing exports first and a written estimate before chargeable production. Commercial-purpose disclosure and fees may apply.
Original solicitations, public awards, official outcomes and reporting. Research cutoff: 12 October Arizona / 13 October UTC 2026; no live refresh.
DataBEX project-level records and private source-workbook references are excluded from this public page. Linked documents are hosted by their original public sources. Some court minute-entry texts were unavailable; later relief is not inferred from docket labels.
01 / Follow the projects
CORE, CHASSE and McCarthy link to 115 of 141 named-prime entries (81.6%) and 89.9% of recorded estimated value in the screened 12 August 2025 snapshot.
The 57-district sample is Maricopa-heavy. These are project associations, not statewide award shares, contractor revenue or final payments.
01 / The concentration in dots
One dot = one named-prime entry in the tracked sample.
141 dots · 15 per full row · grouped by listed-prime link
81.6%
115 of 141 named entries
link to CORE, CHASSE or McCarthy.
| Listed-prime link | Entries |
|---|---|
| CORE | 44 |
| CHASSE | 44 |
| McCarthy | 27 |
| Other named primes | 26 |
Denominator: 141 entries with a named prime. One additional unnamed-prime entry is excluded from the chart, bringing the screened sample to 142. Snapshot: 12 August 2025.
Joint teams: the named-firm counts include entries co-listed with outside firms; the combined three-firm group counts each entry once. A dot does not imply exclusive responsibility, a competitive win or an allocation of project value.
Dots are generated from aggregate totals only and do not identify individual projects. This is a bounded sample, not a statewide award share. Sample definition and limits
02 / Follow the rules
Oracle’s five-year business-history gate and Tolleson’s weighted Arizona K–12 experience criterion can favor established firms.
Other provisions accept personnel or principal experience. Applicant pools and evaluator scores are needed to determine whether a criterion changed an award.
03 / Follow the scope
A campus replacement, classroom wing and renovation are not comparable merely because each has a cost per square foot. Scope, year, location and specification must align.
Only 87 of 142 entries (61.3%) have both a positive estimate and area. Mixed scopes and unverified price years prevent a like-for-like benchmark.
03 / Follow the comparison
RLB’s Q4 2025 Phoenix hard-cost ranges overlap: elementary schools $295–425/SF, high schools $335–515 and prime offices $265–455. Warehouses are $85–160.
Building type matters. These ranges neither prove fair pricing nor measure overpayment; whole-campus GMPs require scope reconciliation.
Three public cases show how a headline rate changes with year, campus scope and the area definition. These are selected approved GMP observations, not verified final payments or a representative statewide sample. They cannot rank contractor efficiency.
| Public case / price year | Approved amount / area | What the ratio includes or misses |
|---|---|---|
| Hartford Sylvia Encinas · 2025 Source 1 ↗ | $41.990M / approximately 83,000 SF | About $506/SF. Includes demolition, abatement, playfields, parking and drop-off work. Gross-area standard and final payment are unverified. |
| Galveston · 2023 Source 1 ↗ · Source 2 ↗ · Source 3 ↗ · Source 4 ↗ · Source 5 ↗ · Source 6 ↗ | $32.341M / 80,000 gross SF | About $404/SF using the designer’s later area; about $399/SF at the contractor’s 81,000 SF, or $449/SF at the earlier 72,000 SF. Includes adjacent ways; separate design fees are outside these GMPs. |
| Hopi · 2017 Source 1 ↗ · Source 2 ↗ · Source 3 ↗ | $19.504M / 79,985 new SF | About $244/SF before separately stated owner contingencies; about $249/SF including them. A nominal 2017 price, excluding separately budgeted design and FF&E. Not a 2025 cost comparison. |
Before calling any difference an overpayment, reconcile final accounts and compare the same cost year, gross-area definition, site conditions, demolition, equipment, soft costs, contingency and delivery scope. No whole-campus GMP is subtracted from the RLB ranges here.
04 / Follow the correction
Scottsdale’s 9 December 2022 Audit Committee minutes report Hohokam credits of $525,855 from CHASSE and $97,096 from SPS+ architects: $622,951 combined.
These reported credits do not reconcile every questioned item, establish fraud or supply a statewide overpayment rate.
05 / Follow the evidence
Match eligibility, competitors and scores to scope, changes and final accounts; then compare genuinely similar projects.
The public examples do not yet provide a statewide award denominator or matched final-cost panel. A statewide overpayment estimate remains unestablished.
The scale is measurable
$7.039BReported Arizona public-school-system construction spending. Eight fiscal years, FY2017–FY2024. Nominal dollars.
The avoidable share is not
Unestablished.The assembled records do not identify a defensible statewide overpayment estimate or evidence-calibrated range. That is a gap in knowledge, not a finding of zero waste.
Census “construction” includes fixed structures, additions, replacements and major alterations, plus project planning and design, site improvements and integral equipment. Separately classified land, existing structures and standalone equipment are outside this construction amount. It includes government-held charter finances, while nongovernment-held charters are outside this government-system series. It is broader than a denominator of major-project prime contracts.
The eight-year series ends in June 2024 and is not the whole 2016–2026 research window. FY2023 and FY2024 Arizona reporting-method changes may produce non-economic movements. These nominal amounts are not an inflation-adjusted trend or a matched-cost benchmark.
Each figure comes from Arizona’s construction column in Table 9. See the FY2024 workbook’s Appendix A for the definition and Appendix B for Arizona reporting notes.