City CARES Act funding application on county’s ‘short stack’

Extension of federal program, additional funding could bring Owensville request back to commission

By Dave Marner, Managing Editor
Posted 1/6/21

A request from the city of Owensville for $26,690 in Gasconade County CARES Act funding reimbursement is in the “short stack” of applications that could be acted on should the county be …

This item is available in full to subscribers.

Please log in to continue

E-mail
Password
Log in

City CARES Act funding application on county’s ‘short stack’

Extension of federal program, additional funding could bring Owensville request back to commission

Posted

A request from the city of Owensville for $26,690 in Gasconade County CARES Act funding reimbursement is in the “short stack” of applications that could be acted on should the county be allowed to allocate unspent money.

Dec. 30 was the deadline for county CARES Act funding to be allocated. Owensville officials had applied Dec. 15 for reimbursement of $26,690 to cover lumber costs above-quoted pricing in the $1,122,900 bid awarded in July for construction of the new police station.

Lawlor Construction has sought some relief from the city for costs associated with COVID-19 issues related to materials purchased for the project.

The matter was tabled by Owensville’s Board of Aldermen during their Dec. 21 meeting after it was presented by their contracted engineer, Travis Hernandez with Archer-Elgin. City Administrator Randy Blaske said this week the Lawlor is seeking reimbursement for the “material up-charge” due to increased costs since the bid was awarded.

A spread sheet included with the application shows an increase in materials costs as of late September of $26,690 more than estimated costs from June. Materials costs from June 24 were listed at $38,850 while the Sept. 29 estimate had increased to $65,541. A load of lumber delivered to the site by Hall Brothers in Union had a $38,799 invoice. Trusses were invoiced for $22,597.

A July 24 invoice from Hall Brothers noted “due to COVID-19 related effect on lumber costs, pricing will be updated at time of sale.”

Sam Aufmuth with Lawlor Corporation sent an Aug. 13 email to Archer-Elgin’s design engineers on the project noting “since the project was bid, lumber prices had hit all time highs. The market had a severe shortage coupled with U.S. imposed tariffs on Canadian lumber imports. The suppliers I have spoke to are saying this is directly a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.”

The email noted the supplier estimated the increase directly related to these factors was between 30 and 40 percent.

Aufmuth closed the letter, writing, “I would appreciate if you would have a conversation with the owner (the city) and see if they are willing to absorb some of these unforeseen price increases.”

Mayor John Kamler had signed the procurement certification on July 22.

The issue was not brought up Monday when aldermen met for the first time in the new year. Blaske said the city’s engineer was not in attendance. He said aldermen will be tasked with determining if they will pay for the entire upcharge or a only a portion.

As of the end of 2020, that payment won’t be made with assistance of the CARES Act funding allocated to Gasconade County.

“It didn’t officially get a ‘no’ — it didn’t get in front of the commissioners,” said Kelly D. Sink, project development manager for the Meramec Regional Planning Commission (MRPC) which is provided oversight to the county’s CARES Act funds. She said the city’s application is among those in the “short stack” of requests which “never got in front of the commission.”

The city’s application for this particular request was submitted after the Dec. 10 deadline and on the Dec. 15 deadline which is listed on the MRPC form.

County officials closed out 2020 with a Wednesday, Dec. 30, commission session since CARES Act funding action was required by the 30th. County Clerk Lesa Lietzow said Tuesday the final accounting of the fund will be announced once it’s completed. As of Dec. 30, county officials had at least $30,000 in funding which had not been allocated. That figure could end up totaling up to $60,000 depending on final accounting. Commissioners that day approved several allocations which they later realized were for amounts above the cap limit (see related story).

Unspent CARES Act funding is intended to be returned to the federal government and Lietzow said the county intends to do just that once an audit of the program is completed. 

And although the city was not awarded funding on this request, Sink said the city’s last-day application can be revisited at a later date.

“We’ll just put it in our back pocket for now and if the county gets word they can spend it we’ll go from there,” said Sink.

Funding decisions and caps

County commissioners used the final work day of 2020 awarding CARES Act funding to several non-profits.

“After everything was in front of the commissioners, they crunched some numbers and made some more payments,” said Lietzow. “They picked out some non-profits.”

Those non-profits, listed at the end of the page 1 story about CARES Act funding, were, however, only awarded $25,000 since that was the amount originally agreed to by commissioners.

“Commissioners set caps early in the process,” said Lietzow — $25,000 for non-profits and $50,000 for businesses. “The last four were capped at $25,000.”

Lietzow said she and one of her clerks went through the list of awards on the afternoon of Dec. 30 and realized these four awards were above the previously established limits. “It was an after-the-fact situation,” she said. “It was an after-the-fact realization by MRPC on the afternoon of Dec. 30 when checks were being wrote out.”

Lietzow said she called Sink to clarify their understanding of the earlier limits.

Deadline date held firm

County officials here, like those across the state, have been adapting to this funding process as they’ve went along. What remained fixed was the deadlines to accept application and the closing date for awarding funds.

“That was the drop-dead date,” said Lietzow about the Dec. 30 deadline for awarding CARES Act funds. “The 30th was it. That was the last day to write checks. They’re done. We are done.”

Although the county initially had Dec. 10 as the application deadline, the form the city filled out had Dec. 15 as the deadline.

“There was some miscommunication there,” Lietzow acknowledged this week, but added, “that (Dec. 10) deadline was set from the beginning.”

Sink, too, acknowledged that the process of awarding funding was created on the fly.

“This has been a whole different ballgame for everyone,” Sink said Tuesday.

There will be an audit of all funding requests and awards. 

If there is unspent funding remaining, what then?

“Understandably, if there if is new CARES Act funding, it may allow the county to have a balance — a window to spend down that balance,” said Sink. “We’re just sitting tight on this end.”

“I would never have dreamt we would have gotten rid of almost all of it,” said Lietzow of the $1.725 million in federal funding.