March 28, 2024

Supervisors compensate BBS for additional work

Project outgrew scope of services when originally estimated at $1.5M-$2M

BBS Architects Engineers, the architectural firm that had designed the layout for the new Jasper County administration building, requested Tuesday, April 20 to amend its original contract with the board of supervisors for additional design and construction fees. The board approved the changes in a 2-0 vote.

Denny Carpenter, vice-chair of the Jasper County Board of Supervisors, was unable to attend the meeting.

Jasper County Maintenance Director Adam Sparks said the firm wanted to be compensated for the extra effort. At the time of the initial agreement, the project was identified as a $1.5 million-$2 million renovation, which meant the design fees BBS provided were based on that initial estimate.

“If you look at about the second to last sentence in that project, the owner budget increased to $3.6 million. BBS continued to design in good faith,” he said. “… Because of the cost of the project has almost, almost doubled, they are getting reimbursed for the design and construction fees to go along with the increase.”

Additional design fees totaled to $35,000, and the added construction and administration fees were $36,250. Altogether, BBS requested $71,250 of additional payments. Jasper County Supervisors Doug Cupples and Brandon Talsma had no disagreements with the amendment.

“In the original contract we were talking about a lot smaller project and a lot smaller scope of services,” Talsma said. “Obviously, it ended up something much larger than that. It’s only fair to compensate them for the work that they’ve done, and obviously the original contract has since changed. So, yeah.”

In other news, the board of supervisors also:

• Approved the Veterans Affairs quarterly report. Director Kurt Jackson said business is picking up. According to the report, 25 veterans were assisted by the county in January, February and March.

Jackson said the Jasper County RIDE Program is back in full effect, taking care of veterans’ transportation to hospital appointments. RIDE transported seven veterans this past quarter, totally 62 rides; most of which were transports to MercyOne Newton Medical Center.

• Signed an agreement with the Iowa Department of Transportation to use Jasper County roads for incident management detours. The IDOT’s agreement states it is a necessity to enact short-term closures (less than 48 hours) of area highways as a result of temporary incidents, such as a crash, fire, flood, toxic air quality, potential explosion and/or explosion.

The supervisors agreed to permit the use of F48, T38 and North 19th Avenue (which is shared between the county and Newton) as detours. The IDOT would be in charge of installing and maintain detour signs and provide all traffic control devices.

• Approved salt bids for the 2021-2022 winter season to be used by the Jasper County Engineer’s Office staff. Of the five bidders listed, only four submitted bids. Central Salt, LLC, of Lyons, Kansas, provided the lowest bid of $73.01 per ton.

According to county documents, the average quantity of rock salt purchased during the winter months is 1,500 tons. The material will be supplied throughout the winter season as needed by Jasper County. Maintenance superintendent Randy Freese said Central Salt was used by the county two years ago and is “pretty reliable.”

Contact Christopher Braunschweig at 641-792-3121 ext. 6560 or cbraunschweig@newtondailynews.com

Christopher Braunschweig

Christopher Braunschweig

Christopher Braunschweig has a strong passion for community journalism and covers city council, school board, politics and general news in Newton, Iowa and Jasper County.