New Florence officials approved a change order to give McCluer Engineering more time to complete construction work on manholes and lift stations in the city.

The vote was made during the New Florence Board of Aldermen meeting on June 8. Ellen Woltjen, a project engineer for McCluer Engineering, appeared at the meeting to propose the completion date of July 31 and the final completion of payment date of Aug. 31.

“They requested July 31 because with the weather, you never know what could come up,” Woltjen said. “There is additional clean-up work that we want them to get done around town, whether they replace the manholes and do some additional work at the lift station. So in order for their payments to be uprooted and processed through the DNR funding, we have to have an active contract between the city and the contractor. If the contract dates are essentially elapsed, it will cause a lot of problems trying to get payment contractors and reimbursement through the customer process.”

Woltjen said there are two manholes that could not be replaced, so contractors are asking for them to be rehabilitated instead. The total cost of the improvements is $10,657.

“The reason those two manholes that originally we thought were replaced weren’t because one was too close to the same utilities that would be too difficult for the contractors to make that replacement,” Woltjen said. “The other was close to an existing tree that we didn’t think was worth it to have to tear down the street.”

The work was originally scheduled to be finished by May 31. Construction started in the beginning of spring.

“They started construction in April because they were waiting for all of the materials and equipment to be delivered so they could come to town at one time and get everything completed and not have to come to town and start in one area and then wait for more equipment and start in another area,” Woltjen said. “So, it did delay the schedule a bit to get those materials on time.”

Woltjen said contractors trying to get pump parts caused delays in construction.

“They have gotten close,” Woltjen said. “They got the bulk of the work done just recently in the past couple of weeks, but they do have remaining cleanup throughout town that needs to be taken care of and the rehabilitation of these manholes that we got in this contract to be completed as well and training on the lift stations, making sure those are fully operational before we give the final approval on anything.”