The Scotts Bluff County Board Monday night pushed back a vote on awarding the construction contract to repair and rebuild the southbound western span of the Broadway River Bridge, at least temporarily.
Three bids were received for the project, the lowest of which was KEA Constructors of Milford for $2.161 million, which was nearly $500,000 above the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funding already set aside for the project.
Road Superintendent Steve Baird was still recommending accepting the bid, in part because there is additional funding available.
“We had an ARPA meeting last week, and we still have $277,000 that we can allocate to this. We (had) held off allocating that anywhere else until we had seen where the bids come in,” said Baird. “So, that gets up to about $1.9 million, or a little more in ARPA funds we could use for this. We went and talked with Lisa (Management Accountant Lisa Rein), and she said she thought she could come up with the other funds to get this going.”
However, Commissioners also wanted to know where the funding would come from for engineering services during the construction phase, estimated at an additional $120,000.
With the bid good for 30 days, the Board tabled a decision on awarding the contract until more information was available for their next meeting.
