The city council discussed change orders and how they work for construction projects in the city during the most recent work session. P-J photo by Sara Holthouse

A City Council resolution for a change order with R. Patti Concrete Excavating LLC for a reconstruction project on Strong Street has prompted discussion by council members about how change orders work and why.

During the latest work session meeting, Councilman Jeff Russell, R-At Large, asked about the resolution and what more is needed for the project to justify adding an extra $20,812 change to it.

“When we decided to dig out that site, which is Strong Street between Lakeview and Prendergast, they — and this always happens on construction projects — found there were more bad sections than we thought,” said Mark Roetzer, city public works director. “So basically they did an additional pour of concrete and an additional 60 feet of curbing.”

This means that the company did not originally plan on doing the entire curb but found that they needed to once work began, Russell asked, and Roetzer said there was also additional sidewalk that needed to be done.

Russell also asked if the companies go look at the areas before they bid, and Roetzer said the companies will bid on quantities that the department puts out. He said if they add to that quantity later then they owe the contractors more. Roetzer added that they most likely do go and look at the area themselves as well for their estimates.

“So, I guess my question is, I can understand if something is underground and you dig, but who’s dropping the ball on not saying, ‘oh, that curb looks bad there, we need to keep going’, or who’s dropping the ball on in the initial inspections on the sidewalk pads or the curbs?” Russell said. “That’s something that’s right out in the open. Why isn’t that being included in the original bid?”

Roetzer said the department’s engineers will go out before any project is done and they put together estimates and contracts. After that work is done, he said, that’s when utility companies will come like National Fuel and do work or the Board of Public Utilities will come put in a new water line.

“I don’t know that this is what happened in this project, but a lot of times they will dig their trench and lose some curb, so we’ll replace that,” Roetzer said. “They’ll put in services so they’ll take sidewalks that we weren’t planning on, and we’ll replace those.”

Additionally, Roetzer said there is always a little bit built into contracts to try and avoid change orders, and of the 10 construction projects done this year this is the only change order that the department has had for the year. Russell expressed concern that a contractor could come in at the lowest bid and then later on say they need more money and request a change order, to which Roetzer said if they did they would need to do additional work to get more money.

After the project is done, Roetzer said the engineers will go back out and look at everything and confirm everything with the contractor. Councilman Russ Bonfiglio, R-At Large, said this is something that is very typical, and something that would happen when he used to be involved in work like this as well.

“It’s a common thing, though I agree, you don’t like to see change orders,” Bonfiglio said. “But, stuff like that does happen. … It’s basically them saying yeah we need to fix that, or this got broken and we need to replace it.”