Unexpected increase in expense could delay latest RDA
project
Morgan Hill – An unexpected spike in the cost of the city’s new library has delayed the long-anticipated ground-breaking for at least a month, but library supporters and city officials are hopeful the project will be completed on time and with few changes.
“I’m certainly disappointed that the bids came in over budget, but I’m really optimistic,” said Carol O’Hare, of Friends of the Morgan Hill Library. “I’m confident the city will find a way to move the project forward.”
The first shovelfuls of dirt were supposed to be turned April 15, but a series of bids the city received in recent weeks came in about $1.5 million over the project’s $17.5 million budget.
It’s now up to the Morgan Hill City Council to approve an alternative funding plan to keep the library’s summer 2007 opening on track. The current library will remain open until the new building is ready.
City Manager Ed Tewes did not provide details of a new funding strategy, but he said his staff was preparing a plan to build “essentially the same library on the same schedule.”
The budget process for the 28,000-square-foot library is complicated by a multi-level bid process wherein the city received several bids on different aspects of the project rather than single bids from general contractors.
At press time, city staffers were still scrambling to determine the exact size of the budget shortfall. Tewes said there may be as much as $1.3 million in unallocated funds that could be used to build the library. The council could also decide to appropriate money from the general fund or other city reserves.
“We’ve got to get it done,” Councilman Steve Tate said. “It’s part of the initial package of what everybody was looking at when we extended the [redevelopment agency]. “We’ve just got to figure it out. The money could come from any place.”
Mayor Dennis Kennedy called the library the city’s highest priority and said he is willing, if necessary, to add to the city’s budget deficit to ensure the library gets built without further cuts or so-called “value engineering.” The mayor said cutting costs at other public facilities has cost the city money in the long run. A decision to not install solar-heating panels at the Aquatics Center, for instance, has increased the center’s heating bills.
“I would favor spending more money rather than cutting. Invariably, it ends up biting us in the foot,” Kennedy said. “The library is a critical project and we need to move forward with it.”
In November, the council voted to boost the library’s budget by about $500,000 to avoid using value-engineering, which typically involves substituting cheaper materials and cutting amenities deemed to be non-essential.
The library is already considerably smaller than was hoped for. Originally, the city was going to help pay for a $21 million, 40,000-square-foot building, but the project was cut when Morgan Hill failed to qualify for matching state funding.
The floor plan includes a large program room, a teen area, a large window facing El Toro Mountain to the west, sales and sorting rooms for the Friends of the Library, plenty of computers and a divided children’s area, all with their own restrooms and a separate spot for preschoolers.
If the council decides against further cuts to the project, it may be forced to dip into the city’s reserves, or add to Morgan Hill’s $1.5 million budget deficit, a prospect that worries Councilman Larry Carr. Carr said he would consider cuts that don’t fundamentally alter the library plans.
“Using the general fund to do these things would be of great concern to me,” Carr said. “That said, we commit to projects and we have to figure out a way to do them.”
Why you should care
City Council members have stated the new Library project is important enough to
allocate further general fund dollars to complete it on time. This could raise the city’s estimated $1.5 million deficit this year.
