GLASGOW — By AMBER DILLEY

Glasgow Daily Times

The Barren County Board of Education met Thursday night in a special called meeting to approve a change order for construction of North Jackson Elementary.

The redesign of the north entrance will cost $37,944 and is due to an existing natural gas service main owned by Texas Gas.

Superintendent Jerry Ralston said that the board knew about the service main before construction started and was waiting until funds were available to make the change order.

“Initially we thought we were going to have to move the main gas line deeper and it ended up, it was going to cost about $250,000,” Ralston said.

Board Chairman Robbie Toms added: “They (Texas Gas) estimated it would have been $50,000 at first to lower the line. That’s what we thought we were looking at. And then they came back with $250,000 and we knew we had to do something else.”

Ralston said the location of the service main was known after the land was surveyed.

“We had American Engineers come up to look and drill and determine what was underneath the ground,” Ralston said. “With that, someone contacted Texas Gas and determined what size line went under there and said ‘look, we’re having an issue with access into the property.’ They communicated with us that to properly allow busses to get in there, that line would have to be relocated at a deeper area. It ended up costing $250,000. We thought that was a very significant price to pay, so American Engineers and our architects figured out a way to redesign that entrance at a cost of around $38,000.”

Ralston said the board had already budgeted for what they originally thought moving the gas line would cost, but now they will redesign the entrance at a lower cost without touching the line.

“Every project has a contingency of at least five percent,” Ralston said. “We use that money to address issues like this that come up during construction. That $50,000 was already in the budget to begin with. Prior to selling of the bonds and approving the bids, we knew that was going to be a cost. Hopefully, we don’t have many more change orders that will impact that contingency.”

Ralston said the board waited until now to make the change order because it wanted to have final building plans approved by the Kentucky Board of Education.

“I guess in theory we could have already worked on that entrance, but we would have had to come up with the money,” Ralston said. “We would have gotten reimbursed, of course, through the project. But also, it wasn’t until two or three weeks ago that the state department approved our final design for that facility. So we thought it was prudent to wait until we had final plans in place and then move on the change order to change that entrance.”

Board member Tim England said the change won’t affect the construction time-table.

“This was planned before, we just had to get the money to put it in action,” England said.

Ralston said the issue turned out to be bigger than planned.

“I think everybody thought initially that it wouldn’t be a very big deal to move the gas line,” Ralston said. “Then it became a big, expensive deal. So, we searched for alternative ways to provide the entrance without relocating the gas line.”