Your Utility Money At Work

Your Utility Money At Work

Our City is on the move. Under the direction of our Public Works Director David Melilli our City is replacing some of the aging water and sewer pipes in the down town area.

This is being done with funds collected for this purpose by the current water and sewer rates. Sufficient money has been collected to accelerate the projects, and do the work at a reduced cost because of the downturn in the economy

Some residents have questioned why contingency funds are added to a construction budget. The purpose is to fund extra work that sometimes becomes necessary when something unforeseen is found during the construction that is not covered by the bid award. If a Change Order to the contract is necessary, the City Manager can approve up to $5,000 without City Council approval. Any Change Order greater than $5,000 again requires City Council approval even though a sufficient contingency fund was approved at the time of the bid award. In some cases, the City Council may seek three new bids to do the work.
A recent example: during a pipe construction project a sewer pipe and a storm water pipe were found adjacent to a water pipe, rather than the water pipe being separated from the other two by three to four feet as required by the Department of Public Health. The extra work required to remedy the problem was not covered by the scope of the contract. Fortunately because contingency money was in the budget we were able to repair the problem without either delaying the project significantly or borrowing money.

Posted by admin on Apr 30 2012. Filed under Community, Government, Lifestyle, Local Businesses. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry