Youngstown board OKs deal with East contractor

By Harold Gwin

The board also approved $116,350 in change orders for Wilson Middle School.

YOUNGSTOWN — The cost of the new $33 million East High School, which opened in fall 2007, just went up.

The city school board has approved a settlement with Valley Electrical Consolidated Inc. of Girard, the electrical contractor, that will pay the company an additional $388,000. The original contract award was $3,029,850.

Gary Kasper, a project manager for the Ohio School Facilities Commission, said the additional cost could have been a lot more.

The company had filed a claim for $1.6 million for lost profit due to delays in the construction schedule that resulted in increased costs to the company. It argued that the delays were the fault of another contractor and beyond its control.

Kasper told the school board that the issue was about to go to court when the state decided to approach Valley Electrical once more to see if a settlement could be reached.

The end result was the company will accept a payment of $388,000, avoiding a court battle, he said.

The OSFC is picking up 80 percent of the settlement and the school district will pay the rest.

The OSFC is paying 80 percent of Youngstown‘s $190 million school rebuilding program, which is now winding down.

The last school on that list is the new Wilson Middle School slated to open this fall.

The school board has also approved $116,350 in two change orders for DeSalvo Construction of Liberty, the general trades contractor on that job.

Brad Adams of Heery International Inc., the school district’s construction project manager for the rebuilding program, said DeSalvo had sought about $300,000 in the change order because of a delay in the notice to proceed with the construction while the state reassessed Youngstown’s enrollment numbers and the need for more new buildings.

The project was delayed by several months, and the contractor said the delay caused its labor costs to rise significantly as unionized employees moved into a new contract year with higher wages.

DeSalvo’s original contract was for $6,524,000.

The change orders break down to $51,350 for labor escalation costs and $65,000 for office overhead and other costs incurred by the time extension.

Total original construction costs for Wilson were just under $10.5 million.

gwin@vindy.com