Stress level surges at city meeting
By Suzanne Werre
Editor
The united “what the heck” thought of the commissioners was palpable Monday night when the commissioners were presented with a bill that was higher than they were anticipating or prepared to pay.
When Toman Engineering’s Abe Ulmer showed the Underwood City Commissioners the anticipated final total of about $2.8 million for the street project that began last summer and is finishing up now, the room became almost silent as the commissioners tried to figure out how, even with using the contingency fund, they were coming up short on being able to pay for the project with money that was earmarked for the project.
After a few minutes of number crunching and reviewing change orders, city auditor Diane Schell had a revelation.
“We haven’t transferred that Surge Fund money yet,” she said.
Three-hundred thousand dollars of Surge Fund money had been set aside for such projects, and she hadn’t put any of that money into the street fund yet – it was still all in the Surge Fund.
A sense of “whew,” followed by some laughs/sighs of relief quickly replaced the silence.
