Cass County Engineer Charles Marker today (Wednesday), provided the Board of Supervisors with an update on County secondary roads and related projects. Marker said Tuesday was the State bid letting date for Farm-to Market account road projects (Those which are paid for through the Road Use Tax Fund). It includes an asphalt overlay on Cass County Road M-56, from Highway 6 to the Atlantic Airport road, and a similar project letting for County Road G-43 (The Lewis Road), from Lewis to Highway 71.
Marker said on both of those projects, the apparent low bidder was Henningsen Construction, in Atlantic. His bid for the G-43 project, was slightly more than $1.126-million, while the bid for M-56 was a little over $1.32-million. The Board will act on approving or disapproving the contracts during their a future, after they have been received by Marker. The late start dates (without penalty), is August 26th for the M-56 project, and September 9th on G-43. Both projects are expected to take about a month or slightly more to complete.
Marker said also, during an Engineer’s conference held last week, they were informed all engineers (regardless of where they are in Iowa), need to be within 10-percent of the bid let contract price. He says that means they are expected to be very accurate with the Engineer’s estimate on the project costs. The federal government says as a whole, Iowa has not been very accurate since 2006, so they are investigating why. In Cass County, the M-56 project is within three-tenths of one-percent, but on the G-43 project, the estimates are outside the 10-percent goal. Maker says there are a number of variables in making an estimate that affect its accuracy.
He says on the G-43 project, the bid was $163,000 less than the engineer’s estimate, but it still came in over the 10-percent limit. Marker says discussions on those types of limits are continuing, at various levels of government and within the industry. Marker says also, work continues on a bridge project spanning the Nishnabotna River on the “Research Farm Road,” with beams being placed prior to the installation of a concrete deck.