Decision Delayed On Project Monitoring Request

The Citizen
10/01/2008
Centerville City Council members have delayed their decision on a request by the city engineer for a more that 50 percent increase to his bill to oversee work on CSAH 14.
Engineer Mark Statz explained at the city's September 24 meeting that his company's initial cost estimate of $55,428 to oversee Anoka County's work on CSAH 14 through Centerville had fallen short by some way as the 20 weeks of work budgeted in the 2007 and 2008 was insufficient to see the project through completion. "The reality of the situation is that the time has proved to be significantly less than what we really needed so we are asking at this point to increase our bill on this project by $35,000 to continue our efforts through to the end of the project," said Statz.

“We also thought at the time [of the initial bill] that Paul [Palzer, city public works director] and his staff would be able to spend a lot of time on the job; however, due to the resignation earlier this year and also there has been a hail storm … we have had to fill in the gaps there where we had planned to count on city staff to fill in and keep the costs down.” City council members expressed disappointment that they had only received news of the request the night of the meeting. “That’s a huge increase in the budget; that’s nearly 100 percent of the initial estimate,” said Council Member Tom Lee. Statz added that engineering staff had been spending on average 20 hours a week observing and reviewing the work of the Anoka County contractor on CSAH 14. “Our staff was so short this summer it was not able to do it,” added City Administrator Dallas Larson. “There were things that went wrong right away and we did need to have eyes and ears on the project, so there was some justification for having the time on the project.” City council members tabled the decision until their next meeting.
If approved, the oversight will cost the Citizens of Centerville a total of $90,428. Is this how Centerville should be spending our tax dollars in today's economy?

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