Construction of Mundare Lift Station $65,000 Over Budget

Construction of Mundare Lift Station $65,000 Over Budget

Michelle Pinon News Advertiser

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Construction of the Town of Mundare’s new lift station is $65,000 over budget.

Chief Administrative Officer Colin Zyla delivered the news during council’s February 16 meeting.

Zyla stated there were $65,000 in change orders, with the majority of those funds being allocated to replacement of the sewer line. “There were other change orders. Our engineering was $60,000 and now we’re expecting it to be $110,000.

“It seems like we’ve had kind of a bit of a ban run of cost overruns on projects of late. It’s kind of turning into a bit of a pattern, “stated Mayor Mike Saric.

Zyla replied, “But, I mean we can’t do much about engineering. The change orders that came in were to make things safer.” Saric replied, “That’s understandable.”

Zyla explained that when the construction company, Taurus Projects Group, was putting in the manholes they discovered the sewer line was in poor condition and needed to be replaced. That, in addition to other change orders drove the price up by $51,000 in addition to engineering costs which had also increased substantially.

Zyla said some of the extra costs associated with the engineering are related to changes that were made during construction. “Right now, we are over budget by $38,000. I am estimating that we will incur and extra $27,000 in costs to complete. He does not believe there was a way to foresee the problems.

Originally, the town had budgeted $880,000 for the project. The cost overruns had increased the total budget to $945,000. The town had set aside a contingency of $50,000 for the project.

Read the full story in the February 24, 2021 edition of the News Advertiser - now online!