Despite receiving a great bid for the northwest inceptor sewer relocation project at K-18 and US-77 Highway the City Commission has put off awarding that contract as well as an agreement for inspection and testing of that project.

Due to the construction of a diamond interchange at K-18 and US-77 Highway scheduled later this year by the Kansas Department of Transportation, the inceptor sewer must be relocated. KDOT has agreed to help pay for that project, but what the split amount will be hasn’t been determined at this point.

Allen Dinkel, City Manager explained that the City’s share has been between 37 percent or as low as 14 percent, but it keeps changing.

“Of course on this size of a project, when it’s over a $2 million bid, every one percent means $20,000 to the local city dollar spent,” said Dinkel. “It’s our interest to get it driven down.”

Dinkel said that the local consultants feel the city share should be closer to the 14 percent range and the last word he had received from KDOT was in the 24 percent range, but that same KDOT representative had quoted him 37 percent just last week.

“It’s trying to narrow that down and get the different departments at KDOT to talk to each other and drive that price down.”

The City does have a bid from Nowak Construction they would like to move forward with, but they first need to know the City’s share of the project. They have 60 days to approve the bid from Nowak Construction.