The Ellijay-Gilmer County Water and Sewerage Authority (EGCWSA) will not be eligible to receive the last draw of funding from a state Community Development Block Grant, which funded installation of new water line in the Roundtop Road area.
As water authority board members met Monday, Nov. 28, EGCWSA director Gary McVey said the authority was approved for approximately $740,000 in Department of Community Affairs (DCA) grant funding for the project, which was finished about a year ago. However, the total project cost came in at under $600,000.
“Basically, we were almost too efficient doing the job. We didn’t spend enough money. You get awarded this much, but it’s based on a percentage (of) how much you spend to complete the job,” McVey told board members Mike Gibbs, Hubert Parker, Don Callihan and Tony Whitaker.
Almost $193,000 of the eligible grant funding will have to be deobligated (meaning it cannot be used by the recipient), but the water authority will only be out $66,000 of that in costs, noted McVey.
“Due to the fact that we did not meet the match on the cash and the in-kind, the DCA says we are not going to be eligible for reimbursement on this $66,000,” he said.
McVey said engineering plans for the Roundtop project were written more for a project that was to be contracted out, although the water authority provided the labor itself.
“The engineer we hired to put all this together knew we were doing this as materials reimbursement only, and we were going to do labor in-house. I don’t know if somebody got their wires crossed somewhere, but he put the estimate together like we were contracting it out,” he added.
Parker asked if the water authority would’ve been better putting the project out to bid. McVey said they would’ve had to spend the money anyway, and it would’ve cost more to hire a contractor to do the work.
“You had a $1.1 million estimate, but we came in at under $600,000. It was about half of the estimated (cost)” he added.
McVey said the water authority has been trying to close out the Roundtop project for some time now, and this should be a big step toward that happening.
“Hopefully we’ll get (it) closed out with a letter to the DCA from the county,” he added.