By Meladi Brewer

DailyAdvocate.com

VERSAILLES — The Versailles Village Council met Wednesday to discuss amending appropriations and awarding bids for the Street Paving Project.

The main purpose of considering an ordinance to amend the 2024 annual Appropriation Ordinance is largely in part to the 2024 Street Paving Program and Northeast Street Reconstruction Project. Francis said the bids went out, they got good numbers, but the project is slightly over what they had originally budgeted.

“There are funds we would like to tap for that. The Street Construction fund has $50,346 we received last year,” Francis said. “That fund came in in January, so this was not part of the budget.”

Francis said they always try to take the money and send that right into the paving project. They are requesting to put that money down for resurfacing and the project to make the bid contract awardable. He said another part of the unbudgeted appropriations were the sidewalk and curb assessments.

“The sidewalk and curb assessments of Northeast Street -the total bid price came in at $37,450. We’d like to go ahead and use that sidewalk and curb assessment money, as that is what it is there for,” Francis said.

There is currently $113, 689.27 in the sidewalk fund. This is ‘like revolving loan money”, as the Village loans the money out for sidewalk assessments, it is paid back, and the money goes right back into the fund.

“We are going to get that money back again, so we are requisitioning this new appropriation in order to use that money to work the project and have the appropriate funds,” Francis said.

The council voted to approve the amendment and declared it an emergency to be pushed forward. Francis explained how the dollar and cents would work out within the project, as he went over the bids the Village received.

“This (appropriation) will result in the fund not getting hit as hard as it normally would,” Francis said.

Francis had sent out bids last Thursday and received three of the five bids back. PAB Construction Co. out of Coldwater had the lowest bid with $391,510. There was an alternate price for Fairview to also be surfaced at $35,950 for a total price of $427,460.

“There was actually a very close second bid with a difference of $320, so that is phenomenal on a job of $400,000. We definitely got some competitive bids,” Francis said.

He said Walls Brothers Asphalt in Greenville was third with a bid of $435,06. “That is some really tight spacing for a project of that size”, and Fairview was bid as an alternative. Francis said they had gotten some good surface numbers, and they are very happy with how the numbers came out.

To contact Daily Advocate Reporter Meladi Brewer, email [email protected].