A $15,000 task order was approved by the Washington City Council for FOX Engineering. The task order has to do with the relocation of the egg sewer. The project was originally estimated at $295,000 and it became a more inclusive and expensive project at nearly $500,000. City Administrator Brent Hinson said the scope of work changed as the project progressed, “Including basically completely replacing a water main along Jefferson, and then doing a little bit of additional work. It’s all stuff that’s very good and positive for our overall infrastructure in that area, but it does cost more then to design that. Then the other big thing is we made the decision, as council knows, to completely reconstruct Third Avenue. So the alley behind the building, so to basically make the drainage work better and make the site layout work better.” He said the increased cost seemed reasonable based on the amount of engineering work that had to be done. However, council members expressed frustration with being given the amount after the work had been done instead of approving it ahead of time, as Brendan DeLong said, “I just feel like it’s backwards to me. Usually we approve the amendments, the task agreements before they do the work. And that’s what I’m kind of having a hard time with.” Councilman Steve Gault added, “Actually we don’t have a choice.” Hinson said he would let FOX Engineering know and that the City hadn’t been notified until recently.

In March, the council approved a $17,000 task order on the south water tower as the inspection of the painting of an overcoat on the tower had been left out of the contract with FOX Engineering. And last December a $60,000 work directive was approved by council after what was called a “design oversight” by FOX Engineering happened at the water treatment plant. The oversight was that a transformer was too close to a door and it had to be relocated.