MINUTES
OF MEETING
CORAL
SPRINGS
IMPROVEMENT
DISTRICT
The regular meeting of the
Board of Supervisors of the Coral Springs Improvement District was held on
Present and constituting a quorum
were:
Bob Fennell President
Sharon Zich Vice President
Glen Hanks Secretary
Also present were:
Dan Daly Interim Manager
Ed Goscicki Co-Manager – Severn
Trent Services
Dennis Lyles District Counsel
Sean Skehan CH2M-Hill
Jane Early CH2M-Hill
Daniel Bohorquez CH2M-Hill
Cedo DaSilva CH2M-Hill
Doug Paton Hockman Attorney
Jim Aversa CSID
John McKune District Capital
Improvement Coordinator
Doug Hyche CSID Utilities
Director
Randy Frederick CSID
Drainage Supervisor
Kay Woodward CSID Accountant
Jan Zilmer CSID Human
Resources
Andrew Hockman Resident
FIRST ORDER OF BUSINESS Roll
Call
Mr.
Goscicki called the meeting to order and called the roll.
SECOND ORDER OF BUSINESS Approval of the Minutes of
the December 17, 2007 Meeting
Mr. Fennell stated each Board member
received a copy of the minutes of the December 17, 2007 meeting and requested
any additions, corrections or deletions.
Mr. Daly stated on page 15 second
sentence we have 60 days not six.
Mr. Hanks stated page 4 should be existing stage not irrigation. On the bottom page five strike with the modeling through the Everglades DRI
method.
Ms.
Zich stated on page 14 in the motion box Mr. Hanks moved and seconded the
motion. The second should be Mr. Fennell.
On MOTION by Mr. Hanks seconded by Mr. Fennell
with all in favor the minutes of the December 17, 2007 meeting were approved as
amended.
THIRD ORDER OF BUSINESS Request of Mr. & Mrs.
Hockman for an Easement Variance at 433 NW 115th Terrace, Lot 54,
Summerwind
Ms. Early stated Mr. Hockman submitted
a revised survey which shows the 32’ easement.
He is proposing to use the first nine feet of the easement; leaving the
District 23 feet. The only thing we can
come up with that we may need in the future is perhaps a reuse line and Mr.
Hyche and I feel 23 feet will be sufficient.
It does say there is a landscape buffer and a drainage easement but 23
feet is sufficient.
Mr. Hanks stated a concern for the
future with easements I know they can always ask us to relocate lines.
Ms. Early responded the easement is
not in their right-of-way.
Mr. Hanks stated what I am saying is
we have water or sewer facilities within Coral Ridge. What is the likelihood or probability the
county will ask us to renegotiate rather than make accommodations within the
right-of-way?
Ms. Early responded I cannot recall
they have asked us to relocate anything. I do not know if this is just going to be an
encroachment agreement because you do not want to give up the easement.
Mr. Lyles stated the term used in
some of the preliminary discussions has been variance and I think it fits the
item before you. I think the Board is
aware a variance means a variance from a zoning or land use condition not a
variance. Technically there is no such thing as a variance from an easement; You
can either give back part of the easement, you can abandon the area, or what I
would suggest, is enter into an encroachment agreement which allows them to
install the types of improvements they want to within the District’s easement
and provide that if for any public reason the full extent of the easement is
ever needed by the District in the future then in that event the matter will
come before the Board and any improvements installed within it will have to be
removed at the owner’s expense. This is
how this type of matter is typically handled.
The alternative would be to abandon the easement altogether to the
extent of the nine feet requested. I do
not know for the reasons previously discussed if that is what you are
considering today but the safest course would be an encroachment
agreement. An encroachment agreement is
a fairly standard type of document we have prepared for other types of easement
issues.
Mr. Hockman stated I think it would
be foolish to put a pool in when you know 20 years down the road you might have
to take it out. I really do not feel, in
response to Mr. Hanks, the road has quite a lot there as far as right-of-way
and landscape buffer, and there is a
permanent wall abutting the whole development and I do not think you are going
to come any closer to our property than that wall. My thought would be if there is anyway you
can abandon from that line to my lot line and you can maintain the neighbors or
anywhere else in the subdivision, but not in my lot line. Is there a way to write it up if you are
maintaining your rights to the easement everywhere except for my property
boundaries?
Mr. Hanks asked is the proposed
encroachment consistent with those on the adjoining properties?
Ms. Early responded the 32 feet goes
all along Coral Ridge Drive so if you abandon the nine feet you will have a jog
in the easement.
Mr. Hanks stated there will be four
other property owners affected by that who could in turn come back and say we
want this as well.
Mr. Fennell asked you said there is
a history of other people having this, what is it that they have?
Mr. Hockman responded the neighbor
to the south does have one to the eight foot line.
Ms. Early stated I do not think it
was vacated I believe it was a letter.
Mr. Hockman stated again, I am just
being realistic, given your expertise in the matter what is the likelihood it
is going to hinder us 10years down the road, I cannot see what you may need it
for and if you can give me some logical explanation to what you would
need.
Mr. Fennell responded I believe we
could think of a lot but the real case here is to be consistent with
others. If we have allowed an encroachment
with the conditions of someday whatever happens. Things do change and to be honest I do not
know that things will change that much but you never know. We could run out of land, in 20 years we
could go through an amazing redevelopment of all of South Florida. If you look at areas such as Ventura, we are
not just talking about the ocean we are talking a half mile in there are all
kind of high-rise apartment buildings. It
is not unforeseeable here and the fact that they are putting up large-scale high
rises near the Everglades is an amazing thing to me.
Mr. Hanks stated just south of
Sample Road they are redeveloping that.
Ms. Zich stated they are trying
too.
Mr. Fennell stated I feel there is negligible
risk on our side. I really do not feel
it is going to be that big of an issue but I do not know if we want to take the
risk. I think what I would propose is
the encroachment.
On MOTION by Mr. Hanks seconded by Ms.
Zich with all in favor authorizing District Counsel draft an Encroachment
Agreement for nine feet across the Hockman property and authorizing District
officials to sign the agreement.
Mr. Lyles stated I will prepare an
agreement you will need to sign it and have your signature notarized. If you own it jointly with another person
they also need to sign; however the signatures appear on the deed. You will return it to me and we will have the
District sign it and it will be recorded in the public records of Broward
County.
Mr. Hockman asked will it be sent to
me?
Mr. Lyles responded yes.
Mr. Hockman stated thank you.
FOURTH ORDER OF BUSINESS Consideration of Change
Orders with Intrastate Construction Corporation
A. Change
Order No. 3 for Blower Improvement and Associated Modifications to the
Wastewater Treatment Plant for a Net Increase of $99,868.95
Mr.
Goscicki stated as background the two change orders are for an existing project
here. The engineer reviewed this in
detail with both Mr. Daly and myself last week.
Mr. Skehan stated on Change Order
No. 3 the most significant item is the change of blowers for approximately
$65,000. The original blowers selected
were found to be not acceptable after an initial blower had been purchased by
the District and installed. To the consequence,
we had some difficulties with it and after several months of difficulties we
decided, with the operations people, to change what we had in the
specifications to look at a different design and model of the blowers so the
continued problems would not be present with the newer blowers.
Mr. Hanks asked were the original
blowers recommended?
Mr. Skehan responded the original
blowers came from us. It was in
combination of working with Barney’s Pumps and the supplier to Barney’s
Pumps. They said this is a new blower
design, it is better than what you have, it is self-adjusting and certain
features of it were attractive for our design flow. What we do is list 10 to the suppliers and
looking at the specifications it seemed to make some sense. After putting it in operation it was found to
not work.
Mr. Hanks asked did it specify the
performance standards? Are we dealing
with performance based specifications for risk, requirement or obligation to
provide a particular pump at least to specification?
Mr. Skehan responded performance
wise it was meeting performance standards, but what was not meeting performance
standards was the operation of the equipment itself; it broke down on multiple
occasions. Mr. Hyche or Mr. McKune can
speak to it more than I can but the number of times the manufacturer had to be
called out to provide service for the equipment just did not make sense and
gave a strong sense of a not needing to have four more blowers of the same
design specifications.
Mr. Goscicki stated the good news on
this is the District moved forward initially with this one blower, separate
from this project as a trial case thinking this is new and better technology
and a better price. What was discovered
through the operation is the reliability was not there so where staff and the
engineer moved forward initially with this one blower thinking of saving money
and getting better technology proved that was not the case. The specifications for this current project though
were based upon that blower so as they have gone into the test period of
operating this new blower staff reached the decision this blower is not
reliable and is not the quality the District needs and are now recommending
changing the other four blowers being proposed for this contract before they go
in so we do not live with the same problem.
The other good news is there is a credit from the manufacturer for the
existing blower of $15,000.
Mr. Skehan stated along with leaving
the blower in place for staff to use as spare parts as needed.
Mr. Goscicki stated the point I am
trying to make is it is an additional cost but some of the additional costs
involved with this is the fact that you are getting a more expensive piece of
equipment. Originally, we tried going
with a lower cost piece of equipment thinking it would be as reliable or
actually better, finding it was not the case and moving back up to what was a
more traditional design. It is not a penalty
because a big part of this is buying more expensive equipment.
Mr. Fennell asked how much have we
already sunk into this?
Mr. Skehan responded the blower
itself was around $30,000 initially when it was purchased by the District
through a Purchase Order to Barney’s Pumps.
Mr. Fennell stated we put out
$30,000 found it did not work, we are getting $15,000 back and we are out
$15,000.
Mr. Skehan responded plus you keep
the existing blower. I need to note this
is going to be brought to you in two parts in that the contractor is not able
to quantify exactly what his changes will be at this point up until the time
this approved to be able to move forward.
Mr. Hanks asked are you comfortable
with the difference in the exclusions?
Mr. Skehan responded yes.
Mr. Hanks stated one says motors and
starters and the other just says control panel.
Mr. Skehan stated this is provided
as backup from what was there to what is there now currently. We have gone over this over the last month
and a half rather extensively to make sure the District was getting what they
are looking for and what we wanted to be able to see here from an operational
standpoint.
Mr. Hanks stated you are keeping the
other blower around, is it compatible with the other blowers?
Mr. Skehan responded the parts will
be compatible. From what I understand of
the blower itself there are different ways the blower can be set up.
Mr. Hanks stated you have the blower
and then the motor.
Mr. Skehan stated they were not
going to see any value in trying to bring it back. I did go back and forth with them on a number
of occasions saying this will be pulled from consideration from future work not
that we are going to have a lot of future work here with blowers and such.
Mr. Hanks asked were these 100 or
125?
Mr. Skehan responded 100.
Mr. Fennell stated please review
again why we are doing this. It was not
part of the original package.
Mr. Skehan stated initially there
were five blowers as part of the package.
One of the blowers was pre-purchased by the District to be able to
continue with operations needed at that particular time. The one blower was not part of the entire
package but we had specified the other four blowers as part of the current
project to be the same so you would have similar equipment. We then found after going through the design
period and then the permitting period this initial blower was not
acceptable.
Mr. Fennell asked do we have to go
back to do anything?
Mr. Skehan responded the slabs will
have to be reoriented as there is a bit of a different layout for the slabs and
how the blowers and piping are situated.
We do not have the final reconciliation from Interstate to be able to
pull this together right now.
Mr. Fennell asked how do you make a
mistake like this?
Mr. Skehan responded it is not
really a mistake. You try to continue to
improve on the equipment. In looking at
what they were providing and what they were recommending for use it is pretty
much standard procedure to be able to move forward in looking for
recommendations from suppliers. As Mr.
McKune and Mr. Goscicki pointed out this was a more cost effective design
initially but evidently, it was not as tried and true as what had been used in
the past.
Mr. Hanks stated what you are saying
is the down time and likely lifespan of this piece of equipment is going to
negate the 41% increase we are realizing.
Mr. Skehan stated the replacement
blowers now recommended are going to be more tried and true and the amount of
downtime is not expected to be significant, whatsoever.
Mr. Fennell asked how do you know
that this time when you did not know it the last time?
Mr. Skehan responded this is going
back and looking at a design, which is an older design, older features for the
blowers than what this particular blower arrangement was.
Mr. Hanks asked what were we using
at the plant?
Mr. Skehan responded more similar to
what these blowers are.
Mr. Hanks stated it is something we
knew worked and we are used to working with.
Has anyone quantified if these tried and true blowers are going to give
us 41% better life?
Mr. Skehan responded we have worked
through it very closely with Mr. Hyche and Mr. McKune. There have been numerous discussions with the
supplier and their confidence level with this is very high at this point. We have gone back to the manufacturer also,
although they remain solidly behind their new design, they will provide what we
want and also the credit.
Mr. Fennell asked who on staff worked
this?
Mr. Skehan responded Mr. Jim Aversa
and myself.
Mr. Aversa stated we took into
consideration the noise factors, this was supposed to be a low noise level
blower. Once we started running this
blower we realized the frame was not beefy enough and kept throwing the belts
consistently giving us an odor problem, which we do not want. After numerous times of having Barney’s Pumps
out to repair this we decided this was not in our best interest, we need the
other kind of blowers we are used to.
Mr. Hanks asked how of10did you
throw a belt on the old blower?
Mr. Aversa responded you do
not.
Mr. McKune stated the manufacturer
finally admitted they used this blower to test the standard. They had not told us the changes they made
during the tests.
Mr. Hanks stated you are not
satisfied with their specifications.
Mr. McKune stated no, personally, I
am not because they beefed up some items but the basic flaw began with the
arrangement.
Mr. Hanks asked how many suppliers
do you have in South Florida?
Mr. Skehan responded there are
several different ones.
Mr. Hanks asked but as far as
blowers go, how many?
Mr. Skehan responded three or
four. We costed this out with one of the
other suppliers and costing was comparable, I do not have the specifics, this
is something which predates my involvement.
Mr. Hanks stated for what it is
worth most of the pumps I end up specifying end up getting spec’d through
Barney’s Pumps because they have the support staff available.
Mr. Skehan stated they are local and
serviceability is a key thing. They were
responsive, Mr. Bob Weatley from Barney’s was out and maintains he is here and
has been here for the long term.
Mr. Daly asked are they just the
local service representative and not the manufacturer?
Mr. Skehan responded that is
correct.
Mr. Daly asked what is the timeframe
involved?
Mr. Skehan responded 10 to 14 weeks. There will ultimately be a time extension
tied to these but right now up to the time we get the order placed or
Interstate is able to place the order, as we are awaiting this decision to be
able to move forward. 10 to 14 weeks to
be able to get on site and it will be the last item going in as part of this
project. Everything else has moved
forward and is on a schedule, which represents where we are.
Mr. Fennell asked what about
money?
Mr. Goscicki responded that is the
only good news that comes out of this contract.
The contract actually had a $250,000 allowance in it.
Mr. Skehan stated it was actually
larger than that and was probably about $500,000 worth of allowances. I will point out after going through both of
these as we close on this between both of these change orders, assuming you
decide, there is about $500,000 worth of allowance and with these two change
orders most everything will be captured under those allowances.
Mr. Goscicki stated as I recall we
have used about ¼ of the allowance.
Mr. Skehan responded that is
correct.
Mr. Goscicki stated there is about
$250,000 left in the allowance, which will cover the two change orders. It is not great news but we are still less
than you approved.
Mr. Fennell asked where does the
allowance show up?
Mr. Skehan responded on the pay request,
which comes through, and the allowance on the unit price items in the contract
with Intrastate. One choice would have
been to potentially have deducted these particular items from the allowances
but, from my perspective, it is much better to be able to bring items of this
size to the Board attention so everybody is on the same page moving
forward.
Mr. Fennell asked is the original
contract $6.89 million to $7 million?
Mr. Skehan responded it would be but
this does not take into consideration what is left in the allowances. Ultimately, once we do an adjusting change
order which comes at the very close of the project we would not be seeing the
full significance of the $200,000 change order.
Mr. Fennell stated I would rather
see the allowance taken now, not later, if that is what you are saying.
Mr. Skehan stated we can take the change
order and save the change order to them and deduct it from the allowance.
Mr. Goscicki stated it is
essentially what you are doing. You are
raising the contact amount by approving the change order but recognizing we are
holding on to this $250,000 allowance.
Making sure we do not spend anything out of it unless it is absolutely
mandatory at this point with the anticipation we do a close out change order to
recover the $250,000 at the end.
Mr. Fennell asked can we do it the
other way which is to use the allowance now?
Mr. Goscicki responded we can do
that.
Mr. Fennell stated I like that
better because there is no money on the table to grab.
Mr. Goscicki stated typically the
allowances are there for certain items, it is not just a pot of money for the
engineer to say I will go build blowers.
If there are specific dollar amounts or unit prices for additional types
of work such as ground drainage, pipe, curb, gutter, the things you have
trouble estimating during construction.
The intent is if something comes up in the field you do not have to wait
30 days to get on a Board agenda to approve it, they can authorize it off of
the allowance.
Mr. Fennell stated you say we had
$500,000 and we have used some of that already.
Mr. Skehan stated looking at this
from a broader perspective right now there have only been approximately
$100,000 in change orders executed. Not
that it is ever ideal to be spending extra money, typically in the grand scheme
of things, the goal is from 3% to 5% of the project value. Thus far, there has been only $100,000 and
these are rolled up in the allowances. We
really do not see too much more out there right now. Most of the significant items underground
where the unforeseen features would be are pretty much behind us.
Mr. Hanks stated explain to me why
we are keeping this blower that was there originally for spare parts. It looks like on this change order were are
getting five blowers versus four.
Mr. Skehan stated it is five
blowers. One of the blowers will be
replacing the existing blower and four, which need to be installed.
Mr. Hanks stated the one being
replaced is the first line item.
Mr. Skehan stated yes.
Mr. Hanks stated we are going to
keep the old pump for parts and we are getting four new.
Mr. Skehan stated four new
blowers. They were part of the design as
it currently sits in the plans and specifications.
Mr. Hanks stated it looks like you
are getting five on this change order.
Mr. Skehan stated you are getting
five. Four are in the plans specifically
to go to four different slots. The
existing spot was blower number five that is replacing the one purchased
before.
Mr. Hanks stated I am not
comfortable with the idea we have gone ahead and items that were hundreds of thousands of
dollars were pushed. I realize you have
to rely on the owner’s representative or the manufacturer.
Mr. Fennell stated these are huge
items. What kind of legal boundaries are
there?
Mr. Lyles asked in terms of what?
Mr. Fennell asked can we just make
these change orders?
Mr. Lyles responded we have an
existing contract that was bid and has line items in it, some of which were
specified some of which are allowances, changes within the four corners are
reasonably necessary to accomplish the purpose of the four corners of the
original contract are up to you. In
terms of your legal footing, it is solid either way.
Mr. Fennell stated I think we should
use up the allocations. To me this looks
more like a design flaw.
Mr. Goscicki stated what we would do
is issue this change order and come back with another change order to reduce
the allowance.
Ms. Zich stated for my understanding
has the $15,000 credit already been used to reduce Change Order #3?
Mr. Skehan responded yes, it has
been used as part of this.
Mr. Goscicki stated you are not
writing a check for this amount it is an authorization to change the contract
amount. They will continue to make
partial payment requests as work is completed and it will run through
accounting. This has no impact on
accounting except to change the contract amount.
Mr. Fennell asked is the actual
funding for this from our bond issue?
Mr. Goscicki responded some is from
the bond issue and some is from existing resources.
Mr. Fennell stated this is the one,
which pushed our timeframe forward. If
we do nothing with these blowers what happens?
Mr. Skehan responded you have the
potential to end up with a blower you pre-purchased before; the same blower,
four more of the same blowers, and potentially have the same maintenance issues
that came with that.
Mr. Daly asked did you say they
actually realized they had a design flaw and made some corrections?
Mr. Skehan responded that is
correct, but overall I believe our comfort level is not there with where they
are right now.
Mr. Fennell asked do we still need
the fans right now?
Mr. Skehan responded yes. Moving forward with the project there will be
additional time. One change order will
provide the contract with approval to be able to move forward and/or a
decision. The decision is then to get
the order placed, the submittals in and go through the whole process, which is
a 10 to 14 week timeframe from where we are right now once we give them the approval
to move ahead.
On MOTION by Mr. Hanks seconded by Mr.
Fennell with all in favor Change Order #3 for Blower Improvements and
Associated to the Wastewater Treatment Plant for a Net Increase of $99,868.95 reducing
the contingency by the same amount was approved.
B. Change Order No. 4 for South Drainage
Area Improvements for a Net Increase of $113,700
Mr. Goscicki stated the reason for
this one is the City of Coral Springs is making us do it.
Mr. Hanks asked what are they making
us do?
Mr. Skehan responded to keep the
project moving forward a package was submitted and permitting was taking place
at the same time. Once the permitting was
finalized, the City came back and said you need to be able to get permits from
the local permitting agency. The local
permitting agency is right here and ultimately the City was not going to sign
off on any of the permits up until the District provided their own
permits.
Mr. Hanks asked did this actual
permit come to us a year ago?
Mr. Skehan responded yes.
Mr. Hanks stated the water quality
provisions we are providing by the use of a exfiltration trench. What are we doing?
Mr. Skehan responded we are doing
regular treatment. Initially the effort
was to move forward without any of this as a cost savings. When the City came back they had all of these
requirements from the site drainage and collection standpoint. What you have with the two sets of drawings
are the drawings which we submitted initially and then the transition to the
drawings that were ultimately approved and installed.
Mr. Hanks asked where do we stand on
construction? How much is completed?
Mr. Skehan responded not what you
want to hear. At the time they ran into
the roadblock of work having to be done at the time and this should have been
brought to the Board’s attention.
Mr. Hanks stated this is not the
first thing that should have been brought to the Board’s attention. Just last month we had another one of these
situations with a site plan. We said
lets find out some more about it. How
can we, as a Board, act responsibly on these items when they are already
done? We are getting here is our change
order or here is our bill. That begins
with Severn Trent, as well, we are talking about trying to keep our cost under
control, trying to keep on top of everything as far as what is going to what
location, who is doing what, are we working on the right stuff.
Mr. Skehan stated this is why I
brought it to the Board’s attention because it was not brought to the Board’s
attention when it should have been. I
did not want this to pass through as a going against the allowance. This is would have been one of those items
that was debatable to present as a change and would have been acceptable under
the allowance descriptions. Due to the
amount it needed to be brought to your attention.
Ms. Zich asked do we have any choice
on this?
Mr. Skehan responded I would say no.
Ms. Zich stated I feel the same way
Mr. Hanks does. I am getting a little
frustrated with hearing about bills somebody is going to charge us after the
fact; we should have known before.
Mr. Goscicki stated we appreciate
the Board’s concern on this and Mr. Skehan and I along with Mr. Daly and Mr.
McKune have met on this issue. One of
the things we have initiated is a standing monthly meeting to review the status
of all construction to make sure the entire management team is aware of what is
going on. As Mr. Skehan indicated, this
change order could have been interpreted under the contract to be funded out of
the allowances and the engineer could have taken it under their own purview to
authorize the work within the allowances on the unit prices and then came back
to do an adjusting change order at the end of the job saying we did this and
that. We said we need to bring full
disclosure in front of the Board, this is a significant amount of money, and we
do not want to do this through net out change orders at the end of the
job. We fully recognize this should have
been brought to the Board six months ago.
We think we have a process in place now that will keep this from
happening in the future. We are getting
into the beginning of a major construction program, we are all onboard that
this is not an acceptable practice, there is no authorization to proceed with
any construction without the manager’s sign off and there is no authorization
to proceed without any construction change orders the Board has signed.
Mr. Hanks stated my understanding of
construction change orders is in the end because this is a required improvement
the Board/Owner would be responsible for paying for that whether there was a
mistake on the engineer or not.
Mr. Lyles stated that is not correct
in a pure government setting where we find ourselves. I am going to give you a general overview and
I am not going to comment specifically on this particular one because we have
already established as the record here we are dealing with something that, from
an engineering standpoint, could have come under the existing contract under
the allowances sections. Let’s talk
about hypothetical situations with a contract where that is not an issue. Change orders are undertaken by a contractor
at the contractors risk in dealing with the government because the contract
itself was noticed, and bid into by a government body, such as this one,
approving it. This again is speaking in
generalities that says though it is seldom done and means a change order could
conceivably come before you and you might say well I think staff probably meant
well when they looked at this and the contractor probably had the best
intentions but we did not sign off on this expenditure and we did not approve
it at the outset and we are not going to approve it now, we are not going to
pay it.
Mr. Hanks stated it is different for
the private sector.
Mr. Lyles stated it is different for
the private sector. In the private sector,
you have lien rights and all kind of things you do not have in the government
sector. This is not to say at the
conclusion of the process that the property owned by the government has been
improved and there is a value associated with the improvement that they could
not sue and get the value of the increase in the government’s property. However, the fact a change order is reviewed
and approved by staff including engineering consultants does not mean you are
stuck with it as elected officials of this body. I thought it was important this be entered into
this discussion and maybe staff have it in the back of its mind when it is
dealing with these change orders and these contractors. I know this Districts reputation and our
staffs reputation are important in the contracting community and we do not want
to jeopardize that, but I do not want to sit
by and let you think you have no choice but to approve it. You have remedies the private sector would
not have.
Ms. Zich stated it bothers me that
this could happen next month and the following month.
Mr. Fennell asked what was the
process for going forward? Who decided
to go forward?
Mr. Skehan responded the gentleman
who approved going forward is no longer with the firm.
Mr. Fennell asked how does that
happen? What is our procedure?
Mr. Goscicki responded it is
approved in the field, it gets approved at the engineering hearing level. The manager may or may not have been
involved. I can tell you the procedure
going forward as I stated earlier.
Having worked in government I fully understand it is not a change order
until the Board has signed it, it is not
a contract until this Board has signed it.
I do not have that authority and the engineer does not have that
authority and our process is if it is not absolutely in the allowance it comes
to the Board as a change order approval.
Mr. Hanks stated we are still
dealing with a balancing act in authorization of change orders and getting t it
done in a timely manner.
Mr. Goscicki stated one of the
things we will want to talk to the Board about as we start bidding these other
projects is how we deal with that, and
how we structure the allowance. The
allowance on this project is very much unit price and very typical in the
industry for unit pricing and we may need to provide some other latitudes, though we have not even started to scope that
out yet in terms of how that will work.
Most of the other governmental entities struggle through this with
getting in front of their board and getting change orders approved. Governments hate change orders because they
are time consuming to get through the bureaucracy and they impact on
construction.
Mr. Fennell asked what is our
policy?
Mr. Goscicki responded I think our
policy at this time is all change orders need to be approved by the Board prior
to any initiation.
Mr. Fennell asked what about this
nebulous allowance?
Mr. Goscicki responded if it is an
allowance issue it has always been approved by the Board in the contract. We tell the contractor we want you to allow
in your price for this quantity of material, you quote back to us the unit
prices and it is part of the bid tabulation.
You asked for a price per linear foot for different size pipe.
Mr. Hanks stated the allowance
mechanism is there to allow you to take into account different things that can
happen in the field so if you have to put in an extra 5’ of pipe to get your
catch basin so it does not conflict with the water maintenance or whatever, you
have it built into the contract and it can be an allowance rather than saying
hold up, we have to wait a month for the Board’s approval.
Ms. Zich asked how many months ago
was this done?
Mr. Skehan responded a year ago or
more.
Mr. Fennell asked who decides to
spend the allowances and signs off? We
are not talking four or five dollars we are talking about $100,000.
Ms. Zich stated which was a year
ago.
Mr. Fennell stated I agree there
needs to be some extra reviews but I do not know that I know who actually
decides to move ahead and spend the money.
Was it our manager?
Mr. Goscicki responded it would be
the manager in concert with the engineer.
The engineer is the one who needs to make the engineering determination
that yes, this is required. The
contractor will come forward to say I need this additional 5’ of pipe to avoid
this conflict and there is an additional cost, the engineer would make the
engineering determination to say I agree it is an additional cost or I do not
agree it is an additional cost with that determination made at we have set up
is we expect the engineer to bring that to the manager to keep us informed of
moving forward with the allowance but it would be an informational thing and
then we would bring it to the Board at the next Board meeting as an
informational item so you are up to date as to where we are on those line
items.
Mr. Fennel stated I believe we need
something more than just information.
Mr. Hanks stated some kind of a
level of comfort with the way these change orders or changes to a contract.
Mr. Goscicki stated these are not the
change orders just the allowance.
Mr. Hanks stated change orders are
changes to the scope of work.
Mr. Goscicki stated changes in the
scope of work would come to the Board prior to authorizing any work done in the
field. In the case of the blower it is a
perfect example, the work has not started, we brought it to the Board to say we
need your authorization, we are not moving forward without the Board approving
it and if you do not approve it we do not include it.
Mr. Hanks stated as far as the dollar
amounts we are considering we have to go ahead in terms of what was brought
before us a year ago in terms of permit plans that CH2MHill had prepared. We knew that was coming and authorized CH2MHill
to prepare those plans needed for the permit, so we knew this was coming down
the road.
Mr. Fennell stated we have loophole
as to how much money can be spent, by who and when. This Board is strapped with $4,000 every time
somebody wants to go out to bid something and yet when we have allocations we
have a $500,000 slush fund and suddenly someone can just willy-nilly for
informational purposes spend $500,000.
Mr. Goscicki stated it is limited in
what you can use with that allowance.
You cannot use the allowance to pay for these blowers, so we could not
within the four corners of the contract say I have an allowance for pipe, curb
and gutter and I am going to use that money to pay for this.
Mr. Fennell stated I understand
needing flexibility for money to be spent I just think we need a firmer procedure
than we currently have.
Mr. Goscicki stated this is one of
the reasons we wanted the change order in front of you. This could have been buried in the weeds and
brought back as part of a closing change order but we wanted this policy
discussion with the Board as to how we move forward because we are just
starting on a huge program and we need to understand what the Board wants as we
start structuring these new contracts.
You recognize a need for an allowance but you want some way ,up front ,as
we are putting the contract together: how much of an allowance are we putting
in, what are the constraints, what is the decision making process, how are you
informed as to where we are in the allowance and what has it been used
for.
Mr. Daly asked is this anything new?
Mr. Fennell responded usually what
happens is every month there was a report but it was usually current. Usually we do not see $100,000 spent a year
ago and then find out.
Mr. Daly stated this is where the
disconnect is. I know you had change
orders before and I know Mr. McKune has brought them to the Board before. I know this has been a pretty smooth
operation were he would come forward with this information, what I do not know
is where the disconnect happened.
Mr. Fennell stated the disconnect
happened and $100,000 was spent. Somebody
decided to revise the plans and John knew about that. Somebody in engineering said that or somebody
in management said that; is that what happened?
Is there at least that? Somebody
signed off on it? If Mr. Petty is the
man who signed then Mr. Petty is the man who said okay do it. I understand the need for this money but
anytime I think you have spent more than about $25,000 there has to be a
signature from the chief engineer, a signature from the operating manager on
the fact that you are going ahead and it has to be reported at the next Board
meeting.
On MOTION by Mr. Hanks seconded by Ms. Zich with all in favor the engineer and manager were directed for items $25,000 or greater to be acc