Project changes for Lyco Valley of concern for district
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Change orders have plagued the ongoing construction project at the Lycoming Valley Intermediate School and the administration and school board in the Williamsport Area School District are not happy about the situation -- and are considering taking the matter to court.
To date, the district has paid out $635,445, which is half of the contingency fund allotted for such occurrences, but with not quite 50% of the project completed Superintendent Dr. Timothy S. Bowers points to work done by civil engineering as one of the reasons for the large amounts of change orders.
"I think civil engineering made a lot of mistakes. There were some things that were unforeseen that you're going to have with any project. Other stuff should have been caught," he said.
"There have also been some things that you don't see until the elevations are done. Some I think, should have been seen ahead of time and some were probably unforeseeable," he added.
A change order is issued when the original agreement on the scope of work, the cost or the schedule of a construction project needs to be altered.
Bowers offered an example or an issue he felt should have been caught by civil engineering
"We didn’t see where the elevation near the loading dock was, until you actually saw it with your own eyes. It’s tough to look at a plan and really realize where the elevation is compared to the roof of the building," Bowers said.
When he made a site visit after the elevation was done, Bowers noticed a serious problem.
"If this is the end result of where the loading dock is, kids could actually climb on the roof of this building. Does anyone think that’s a problem," he said.
"There could be a debate whether that should have been caught or not, but in order to do it right and do it safely, that change order is necessary," he added.
He cited another issue with a sidewalk that needs to be constructed connecting the baseball field area and a parking lot.
"We talked about that very early on with the township supervisors, they actually said, maybe you want to look at a sidewalk to go back there. But at the time, civil (engineering) told us that the bank was going to be pretty gradual. People, if they wanted to, could go from the parking lot, walk up through that bank onto the road, and it was not a hard walk," he said.
"Now that we see that bank, we disagree. We think that would be a hard walk. And I think the community would be like, 'what are you talking about, you want me to walk up that bank,'" he said.
"Now we've got to backtrack and say, what’s it going to cost to put a walkway in? So again, could you point that back and say civil (engineering) should have known better...bottom line -- 50% contingency when you have less than 50% of the project completed is too much," he stated.
Board member Jamie Sanders said that he believes the job of civil engineering is to catch those problems before the work is done.
"That’s exactly what civil engineering does -- to see it before it's done. We paid a lot for that civil engineering so that they can look over all those details and see that ahead of time, not so we can go back and correct 'oh, I didn't see that'," Sanders said.
Although Bowers stated that the district will be seeking some way, probably through litigation, of recovering some of the money spent on change orders, that will be done once the project is completed. Until then, he said that the district is documenting issues.
Change orders for the Lycoming Valley project approved at this month's board meeting include: Turnkey Electric, $4,816.26; Turnkey Electric, $2,447.31; Lobar Inc., $2,136.61; Lobar Inc., $11,014.14; Lobar Inc., a credit of $27,833; Lobar Inc., $3,480.93; Lobar Inc., $8,842.73; Lobar Inc., $48,468.44; Lobar Inc., $626.38; Myco Mechanical, $953.19; Myco Mechanical, $1,327.98; Myco Mechanical, $725.99; Myco Mechanical, $841.90; Myco Mechanical, $5,813.62; Lobar Inc. $22,357.09; Lobar Inc.,$31,081.61; Lobar Inc. $11,108.61; Lobar Inc., $17,694.96; and Lobar Inc., $24,505.95.