The Rowan County Board of Education voted Dec. 17 to approve a final pay application tied to the Rowan County bleacher improvement project after the project architect recommended payment and the contractor appealed to the board.

Suzanne Irwin, the project architect for Ross Tarrant Architects, told the board that the firm and project consultants had reviewed Omni Construction’s final pay application and “found it fair and reasonable.” Irwin explained that the contractor’s original final pay application listed about $147,000, from which retainage and withheld amounts (approximately $63,000 in withheld adjustments) were deducted to arrive at the net figure included in the board packet.

Omni owner Brandon Tyre addressed the board in person, saying the job encountered unforeseen wet soils and springs that required extensive pumping and remediation. “I felt it was fair that we come and plead our case,” Tyre said, and described making a verbal, on-site agreement with the district’s treasurer (Glenn) that liquidated damages would not be applied if Omni covered certain concrete costs and labor. Tyre said he had absorbed much of the labor and some materials and asked the board for “grace and mercy.”

Board members said detailed contract negotiations and attorney communications would continue outside the public meeting. The chair called for a motion to approve the final pay application; the motion was moved, seconded and approved by voice vote. The meeting transcript contains an inconsistency between figures presented in the written packet (a net of $83,658.35 after change orders and liquidated damages) and a numerical figure read aloud during the motion (the transcript records a different larger number). District staff and counsel were directed outside the meeting to reconcile the accounting and contractual details.

The board did not take a roll-call vote assigning individual votes by name; the chair announced the motion passed by voice vote.