Council questions funding for HVAC system

A complete overhaul of the Beatrice Police Departments heating and cooling equipment was recently finished. Now, the city is determining how to pay for the project.

With a price tag of more than $155,000, the HVAC overhaul ended up costing nearly double the estimated cost of $90,000, according to City Administrator Tobias Tempelmeyer.

When we hired Davis Design to help us put together that project, they estimated it would cost us about $90,000 for the installation, he said. When we came back and bid, the only bid came back at about $176,000. We did have a change order that brought that number down to about $155,876. We had budgeted about $90,000 for the installation.

Beatrice Mechanical was the company that submitted a bid for the project. During Mondays meeting, where no action was taken, the council considered various funding options for the project.

Three options were highlighted as potential funding sources for the HVAC renovation.

At the end of the fiscal year, the city is projected to have $1.5 million in cash reserves the funds could be taken from.

The city also had a budgeted item for trail work from Hannibal Park to the pool, in the amount of $122,000. Tempelmeyer said the city hasnt begun getting right of ways to proceed with this project, and chances are slim it would be done in 2015, anyway.

He added that since the trail funds arent going to be spent as budgeted, theyll return to the general fund anyway, so it makes little difference which pool the funds are taken from.

A third option presented was to defer various capital funds, though councilmen indicated this option would not be preferred.

The council could also opt to use a combination of funding sources for the project.

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Council questions funding for HVAC system