Change orders, Arjem Street rework discussed at Huntingburg Board of Public Works

The Huntingburg Board of Public Works approved two change orders for ongoing street projects during its recent meeting, while city officials outlined new procedures to prevent costly street reconstruction issues like those encountered on Arjem Street.

The board approved a $15,333.63 change order for the Community Crossing backed project on Walnut and Jackson streets. The largest portion of the additional cost stemmed from unexpected work along Walnut Street’s east side, where the water department installed a new water line after the project was initially bid.

The water department’s work required additional deep patching beyond what was originally planned, contributing significantly to the change order cost. Mayor Neil Elkins indicated the water department would cover approximately $8,117 of the additional expenses related to their utility work.

A second change order from Rivertown Construction totaling $832 was approved for an additional 16 linear feet of 12-inch pipe on Clay Street that extended beyond the original project scope.

Mayor Elkins pointed out during Thursday’s regular meeting that before the change orders, the Community Crossings-funded projects were $30,000 under budget.

The board also addressed ongoing issues with Arjem Street, where unexpected subgrade problems have resulted in additional repair costs of $14,960 after applying a $6,200 credit from JH Rudolph. The credit comes from the manhole adjustments the city was required to do after JH Rudolph paved 19th Street.

“They’re basically saying that’s what it would have cost them to do what we did,” Street Superintendent Jason Stamm told the board about the credit for the manhole adjustments.

JH Rudolph ran into issues after paving Arjem Street due to insufficient subgrade underneath the asphalt, causing settling and crumbling of the asphalt after it was recently completed.

The Arjem Street repairs will involve milling from the west curb, removing all asphalt, and then the street department will excavate to a suitable subgrade. They will then backfill with stone and geotextile before repaving it.

Board members expressed frustration with the unexpected costs and reconstruction needs. Kerry Blessinger called the situation “a very bad use of taxpayer money” and emphasized concerns about the financial impact on the city.

“I’m still not happy about this street and I probably never will be,” Blessinger said. “We’re going to pay them 15 more thousand dollars to fix it. We’re going to have your guys time and materials into working down there too.”

Mayor Elkins and board member Keith Souders both agreed with Blessinger.

Stamm explained they’ve learned their lesson and will require core sampling before any future street work begins. The street superintendent acknowledged that previous practices had not included routine core sampling, which might have identified subsurface issues earlier in the process. He added that they have only recently run into issues with the subgrade in these types of projects.

Regarding Arjem, Stamm said the street was inspected before the work, and they didn’t see any issues, although core samples were not taken. “Could we have core sampled? Yeah. But was there a chance we would even hit that right spot?” he questioned, adding that core sampling doesn’t guarantee they won’t run into similar issues in the future.

When questioned why the work was completed on top of the insufficient substrate, Stamm explained that one area did show up while the contractor was milling, and it was addressed before paving began. The other areas did not appear until after the paving was completed.

The city plans to conduct core sampling on 14th Street and will perform multiple core samples on any future street projects. However, officials noted that the city’s core sampling capabilities are limited to determining asphalt thickness and stone base depth, while soil analysis would require hiring outside specialists.