Trumbull approve $771,746 increase in sewer engineering fees

Staff report

WARREN

The Trumbull County commissioners on Wednesday approved a $771,746 increase in the engineering costs for the $10.6 million Kinsman Township sewer project that has been mired in legal action.

The additional money is to compensate MS Consultants Inc. of Youngstown for the extra months of inspection on the project and significant additional work to arrive at solutions to fix substandard work that the county says Marucci & Gaffney of Youngstown did while constructing the project.

The commissioners in October 2015 terminated contracts with Marucci & Gaffney for the Kinsman project and a similar sewer project on state Route 193 in Vienna Township and filed a $1.3 million breach-of-contract lawsuit in common pleas court against the company.

The suit said the sewer lines had “sags” in them instead of being level. The county hired Kirila Contractors of Brookfield and other companies to fix the sags.

The repairs are finished on the Kinsman project and are nearly done on the Vienna project, said Randy Smith, Trumbull County engineer.

The additional costs approved Wednesday include $369,405 for additional construction inspection and $198,592 for engineering of repairs, according to the meeting agenda.

The total amount to be paid to MS Consultants increases from an original amount of $1,218,362 to $2,025,987. There have been other modifications to the contract amount since the original contract was approved in 2009.