Says inexperienced contractor is requiring more supervision
Jefferson city engineer John Milligan of MHF Engineering lobbied the Jefferson city council’s water/sewer committee at a June 16 meeting for support of $43,000 contract amendment for work on utility extensions now under way.
The city council last summer approved a contract with MHF Engineering for $153,500 for a 6-month construction period for those projects.
Milligan explained to the committee Tuesday that the first amount was an estimate, and that the scope of the project has changed since then. Also, the contract was done before the contractors for the project were identified, creating a “huge unknown” for his company.
Milligan briefed the committee on the sanitary sewer project required for Wild Rose Jefferson. A new lift station on Grimmell Road will not be finished, but other systems are available, Milligan explained. Wild Rose Jefferson will have sanitary service one way or another. “We can provide sanitary service to Wild Rose. They don’t care about the lift station,” Milligan said.
Rainy weather has delayed the project. Milligan said the contract with Scharnweber Inc allows for rain days without penalty. Milligan has kept a log of rain events since the project began, and he called the list “significant.” Work days missed because of rain or because the soil is too wet can be added to the end of the contract (June 15) before any penalties are imposed, Milligan explained. Scharnweber is not yet into penalty days, but Milligan said that by the time work is completed on the Gallup Road portion of the project, the clause in the contract calling for liquidated damages will be in effect.
The company has not yet put its crew on a weekend schedule.
Milligan justified the request for additional pay as a result of Scharnweber’s inexperience. “If you’ve got a contractor that is experienced, knows this type of work intimately, it doesn’t take much time for us,” Milligan said. “If you’ve got a contractor that has got the equipment, but not much experience, it does take more time. Quite often, with a contractor like that, they’ll look at us and say ‘What do we do next?’ That’s what Scharnweber is doing. We’re not the foreman. The answer is, ‘You guys bid the job. Construct it. If you’re doing something wrong, we’ll tell you.’ All we’re doing is observing what they’re doing, but somehow it always gets into way more than that.”
Council members Lisa Jaskey and Gary Von Ahsen both used the term “babysitting.” Milligan didn’t use that term but didn’t correct others using it.
The project was awarded based on the low bid. Bids ranged from Scharnweber’s low bid of $697,789 up to $1 million. The pre-bid estimate for the project was $800,000. Milligan said he verified that bid with Scharnweber and asked serious questions of the company. He checked the company’s references and “nothing bad was said.” He said he warned the company of poor soil conditions, a high water table and a fairly significant sand seam, and the company stayed with its bid.
The amendment to MHF’s contract will be on the city council’s June 23 agenda. The water/sewer committee did not indicate if it will recommend approval to the council.
