Carbondale trustees press for clearer accounting after Aquatic Center contingency and fundraising shifts

Carbondale trustees pressed project staff and the owner's representative on budget changes and contingency accounting for the town's Aquatic Center during an update April 22.

Trustees said a recently revised reporting format made it difficult to track how the project moved from a previously "fully funded" position to one showing an apparent $900,000 gap. Tammy Tucker, the new Wember representative on the project, told trustees the $900,000 had been interpreted by the project team as an increase attributed to the project budget, but that she had not found a board motion that explicitly approved moving that amount into the project total.

"I did not find a motion from the board that, officially moved that to increase the project budget," Tucker said. "If that was a mistake or that was apparently applied, then that's certainly a correction that we can make."

The discussion focused on explaining the difference between the guaranteed maximum price (GMP) and the total project budget, and how change orders move money from an owner's contingency into the GMP. Tucker said, "The GMP is the construction project budget. The project budget is more than the GMP. The GMP is what the construction contractor agreed to build the facility for." She also described the contingency log changes: "The revised contingency log that we proposed... consolidated a lot of that. So it took out a lot of the minutiae... and focused on the decisions that were made."

Trustees pressed for clearer separation of (a) the project's spending and contingency tracking that Wember manages and (b) the town's internal owner-funding table showing which municipal funds would supply the owner's contribution. Trustee Colin said, "We should not be trying to represent the town's budget in the project budget. We should just be showing this owner funding line, the bolded line as the totals." Several trustees called for staff to provide the town's funding detail separately and for Wember to present a clarified contingency/change-order log that breaks out large items.

Board members identified specific line items they wanted clarified. Trustee Jess asked about an $826,000 line described in the contingency log as "mounted PV array PCO 8 PCO 8 plumbed aquatic play elements," and Wember staff said the figure included prior change orders and would be broken out more clearly. "That line includes change order 2... and change order 3, which was those 2 items... It would be nice for us to be able to itemize each of those," Wember said.

Trustees and staff also discussed contingency purpose and governance. Several trustees said contingency should remain available for unexpected site conditions or necessary scope corrections, not for routine "nice to have" add-ons. Wember and town staff described contingency as covering both unforeseen conditions (for example below-ground discoveries) and board-authorized scope additions; they emphasized that board-level approval would be sought for major changes.

On fundraising, Eric (town staff) reported active grant activity: "We have about $3,330,000 in grant asks out right now," he said, and staff said they planned to hire an outside grant writer for a roughly $200,000 state program to help cover the air-source heat pump work. Trustees asked staff to produce a reconciled figure for the total project budget and a clear map showing which funds will cover any remaining gap so they can understand whether the previously described "fully funded" status still applies.

Wember and staff committed to return at the next meeting with (1) a project-budget-only spreadsheet (Wember) showing GMP, change orders, contingency debits/credits and pending PCOs broken out by change order, and (2) a separate town funding table (staff) showing the owner's funding sources and the dates or motions that authorized each contribution.

Trustees and Wember agreed that the project is out of the ground and that construction risk is lower than during excavation, but warned that scope additions and design rework still raise costs. No formal action was taken at the meeting; staff said they would rework the report and provide clearer, itemized contingency and funding tables at the next update.

ACTIONS: No motions or votes were taken on project funding at this meeting. Future board direction was requested and staff committed to return with revised reports.

ENDING: Trustees said the level of scrutiny reflected the project's funding complexity and the board's recent decisions to use multiple municipal funding sources plus fundraising. Wember and staff said they would revise the documents and return for a follow-up update.