While inmates have been living in the new Surry County Detention Center since mid-December, there are still lingering bills for the construction work that need to be paid.
Monday night the Surry County Board of Commissioners heard from Paul Luzier of Mosely Architects, Hank Reynolds from construction management firm H.G. Reynolds, and Surry County Public Works Director Jessica Montgomery, to understand what bills were outstanding and how the county needed to address them.
“It has never been the position of this board that we do not want to do our fair share and what we have agreed on,” Chairman Van Tucker said.
H.G. Reynolds submitted its final payment request to the county on Feb. 12 and company officials wrote in an April 12 letter to the county that per terms of the contract that they had expected payment within 45 days, which had not yet arrived.
“There were some change orders that were over and above retainage,” the letter said. The UNC School of Government says retainage is a sum of money held out of a contractor’s pay request until a construction project is completed. “We understand that getting the change order approved has been a problem.”
When new items are added after the project is approved, those change orders must be approved by the board of commissioners on a case-by-case basis.
Tucker asked Montgomery to help clear up some of the confusion. “Come tell us where we are stuck in the mud. We’re all friends here so let’s just lay it out so the board can have a better grasp.”
The chairman asked why the bills had not yet been paid and was told that the documents had arrived just a few weeks ago and there had not been sufficient time to review them. “So now is the night to review it,” Montgomery said.
She said that the final payment had not been approved because the release of retainage is included, “and with that amount of money I think it’s something that needs board approval.”
County Attorney Ed Woltz said he had only recently received the documents regarding the final charges and had not yet had a chance to review them all.
“There is no need to hold their retainage at this point, we just need to approve the final change order,” Montgomery recommended.
The final change order the county held requests for additional items such as fire alarms for a cost of $18,753 and a change in fire protection equipment in the kitchen ran $4,765. The total of that change order for six items was $37,240 — which had already been reduced by H.G. Reynolds from $46,048.
Also included in it was an allowance for extra days of work beyond the projected completion date. “At the time the request was made for the change order, we were already in May (2023) so that request came in late. It was June before it was approved and then there was a 12-week lead time for the materials for the security upgrade and another 36 days for installation,” Luzier explained.
That change was not requested by Surry County but by the Human Services Division of Health Service Regulation under the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services, who oversee jail conditions, amongst other areas.
Tucker said he was aware of some of the delays to opening the new detention center that were beyond the control of the county or the contractor. “I heard that we weren’t passing inspections with the state inspectors with our air handlers, or volume, or air flow were not passing code, that’s what our local inspections department was saying to us. So, we had a lot of reasons (for delays), and we had people asking over and over why isn’t the jail open. Well, we had not completed inspections,” he said.
He made it clear that he wanted to pay what the county owed. By doing so the county would be “being good citizens, good neighbors, and do our part by holding up our responsibilities.”
Woltz agreed that would be the correct course of action, “because we are contractually obligated to do so.”
Vice Chair Mark Marion made a motion to pay the amount owed of $1,051,463.35 that would clear the final change order and release the retainage amount. Woltz asked that language be added in that would allow the county to look over the overage charges to ensure their validity. Commissioner Larry Johnson seconded the motion which passed unanimously.
Reynolds told Tucker that the board’s decision moved the matter in the right direction toward its final resolution, “We’re making strides.”
The bill for that change order shines a bright light on a big, big number: $40,606,143.78 which is the new estimated total cost of the Surry County Detention Center. The initial contract sum had been $39,707,332 and there were just under $899,000 in change orders from the time the project began to the issuance of the final bill in January.
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