Crawford County's finance committee and board of supervisors received updates on their $35 million jail project over the past month.

At the Nov. 19 finance committee meeting, Greg Callin, vice president of client services for Kraemer Brothers, said the project is "in the green" in every metric, including safety, cost and schedule.

"We've really made a lot of significant progress over the past month," he said. "The structure is really now 100 percent closed — absent a couple of things — a few doors and some wall cladding we have to do."

The addition is expected to be substantially completed by April of next year. Although Kraemer Brothers' schedule estimates construction will be completed in July, total project completion is still expected in early fall.

"Fall is what we committed to contractually, but things have gone really well, and we've been ahead of schedule. But there's always some fine-tuning to do. Our approach as a construction manager is that we just don't hand over the keys and walk away," said Callin.

Kraemer Brothers will continue to work with the county for two to three months after the project is technically finished, according to Callin.

Concrete and utilities have been completed on the addition, and crews were spreading topsoil on the site during the second half of November. Inside, painting, tiling and the installation of fixtures, such as cabinets and countertops, were in process. Once those are completed, detention fixtures will be put in place.

•Kraemer Brothers continues to hold architect/contractor meetings open to county officials.

•Kraemer Brothers had conducted four safety meetings and three inspections over the past 30 days. Kraemer Brothers has not reported any safety incidents for the project.

•The remodel of the law enforcement center will be done in three phases. The first phase has begun. On the ground floor of the building, the ceiling panels are out.

•According to Callin, the remodel crews are currently working on demolition and MEP (mechanical, electrical and plumbing) systems.

•Commissioning and testing for the new addition is scheduled to begin early next year.

Nate Bremmer, a member of the county's Jail Transition Team, also updated the county supervisors during their November meeting, noting that the county is still looking to fill jailer positions for the new facility.

He also said the original project manager, Mitch Gilbertson, left Kraemer Brothers. He has been replaced by John McRae, formerly a field engineer and now assistant project manager, who works with another project manager to oversee the jail project.

"Mitch left to pursue another opportunity. We hated to lose him, but with John and Eric Cook stepping in as project managers and the rest of our team in the field, we haven't missed a beat," Callin later told the Courier Press.

McRae joined Callin during the finance committee meeting, where he reported on the project's contingency fund use. 

The project has dipped into its contingency money in order to fund changes that come up during the construction process. The project has used approximately $426,000 of the $1.16 million allocated to the project's contingency fund for 30 proposals.

"Contingency is there to protect us because there has never been a perfect set of plans," said Callin. "There's always some gaps from a design standpoint that get identified as we build that we need to have dollars available to fill those gaps.

"Those items bubble up in the field, sometimes from Kraemer Brothers as your construction manager and sometimes from your subcontractors that are working on the job."

Once a "gap" in the project is encountered, it is reported from the field to the firm's office. From there, the construction manager works with the architect and other relevant parties to propose a solution, which is taken to the county for approval.

Proposals can cost additional money, which is taken from the contingency fund, or have no cost. On occasion, a change order can also save the project money.

The proposal item log contained 57 proposals, with 37 of them approved. Three of the approved items did not have a cost. Until September, there were seven proposals, with the rest recorded after Sept. 25.

"When the structure goes up, there's not a lot of use of contingency items, typically. [Those] tend to come more as you finish and build out," said Callin.

Some of the higher-ticket orders that were approved included the removal and replacement of 15 windows in the new addition and law enforcement center (approx. $88,000), HVAC actuator changes ($17,000) and glazing to the mirror finish on some windows ($18,000).

Regarding the window replacement, McRae said, "It's one of the items we excluded at the beginning of the project so that we would have contingency available, and we worked it back in."

Callin noted that some items were cut earlier in the design phase to ensure the project would have the necessary contingency fund to cover emergency costs. As the project has progressed, some of those items are now being added back into the design.

Thus far, the project has received two proposals that resulted in a cost savings: changes to the kitchen and laundry area (saving approximately $10,000) and changes to fire extinguisher storage and location (saving $1,026).

Rejected proposals included existing building code changes and a non-perforated barrier deck ceiling in the kitchen.

Of the remaining items, two were rejected, and 18 remain in open status, meaning they have not been approved or rejected as of Nov. 19. There were also 11 more proposals with a pending status that did not have a cost associated with them yet.

The county expects to approve the third round of funding for the jail by spring of next year.