Although the issue was resolved and the county saved a substantial amount of money in the process, comments by Lycoming County Commissioner Marc Sortman showed his continuing concerns with how taxpayer dollars are spent, many times on wants, not needs in relationship to building projects.

“We have to do our due diligence ahead of time when building buildings,” Sortman said.

The agenda item which prompted his comments concerned an agreement with UGI Utilities, Inc in the amount of $2,500 to upgrade the gas line at the new Coroner’s Building on Wahoo Drive.

According to Cameron Boyer, head of facilities management, the volume of gas coming into the building was missing in the original design.

“To get the volume of gas needed to run the backup generator — there’s not enough on site, so now we have to run a new service line from the main,” Boyer said. The meter system would also have to be upgraded.

The cost was originally $50,000, but in talking with the gas provider, Boyer was able through a grant purchasing agreement to get the cost down.

For Sortman, this one instance of costs coming in after the original plans have been approved is indicative of a greater problem in government.

“I have been amazed at how many things came in after the fact at that one facility and that, and I’m not picking on the coroner’s office, because I guarantee it’s happened, probably here at the 33 Street Plaza, across the street at the courthouse and the Executive Plaza years ago. You know…everybody’s taken advantage of government over time,” Sortman said.

Sortman praised Boyer’s work at getting the costs down in this particular instance.

“I’m very pleased that we have people such as Cam Boyer here who fought this one a little bit as well…new people here at the county that are fighting these change orders and other people’s errors designing buildings, or the engineering work, the architectural work, whoever it might be. And again, I’m not trying to pick on any one person, but you know, at home, if you have a design flaw, I don’t know that you just bend over and accept the $50,000 change with your $50,000 kitchen. You can fight that. You question that. So I’m so pleased that we have people questioning that type of stuff here,” he said.

As in some of his past comments, Sortman stressed the need for building projects to be based on needs, not wants or wishes.

“When you have a wish list, as opposed to a needs list, you have to get it to the needs list, because you’re going to overspend, especially when there’s a wish list,” he said.

“But some of these natural gas changes are part of a wish list that we had at that building that maybe didn’t need to happen. It’s behind us. It’s in the rear view mirror, and thank goodness we have people that are now watching these change orders. So I appreciate that,” he added.