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Council urged to allocate $100,000 in CDBG funds to complete senior-center repairs
Summary
Park engineer Mark Spats told the Clarks Summit Borough council that a senior-center repair project out to bid may require an additional $100,000 in CDBG funds to award necessary add-alternate items; staff said county agreement and a funding deadline mean the borough should act at next week’s meeting.
Park civil engineer Mark Spats told the borough at a special meeting that a senior-center repair project now out to bid includes necessary add-alternate items that could raise the job from a $120,000 base to about $220,000 in total.
Spats said Highland Associates prepared bid documents and that contractors returned a low bid on the Lakeside pavilion concrete work well under the allocation, leaving leftover CDBG dollars. "We could choose to move forward with those items or not, but they are really necessary at the building," Spats said, referring to the add-alternate interior repairs.
Spats asked the borough’s CDBG bureau to consider allocating an additional $100,000 so the add-alternates can be awarded rather than left unperformed. He said the senior-center work would draw on CDBG buckets from multiple years and noted the program’s spending deadlines: some earlier-year dollars required spending under an imminent deadline and other buckets extend later into 2026. He notified the council that Joe Brzinski from the county would bring the standard county–borough agreement for the pavilion project to the June 3 meeting so construction can proceed under county administration.
Council members pressed staff on procurement and risk. One council member said the priority must be to spend shovel-ready money before funds expire: "We really got to move these things forward next week. That's the bottom line." Staff explained add-alternates were included in the original bid package, so awarding them does not trigger a new procurement; if the borough declines the additional allocation the project would proceed at the $120,000 base scope.
Spats also described scope items discovered inside the building (repointing brick, drywall and mechanical equipment needs), and singled out a failed heat pump that cost about $6,000 to fix. He reiterated that normal change-order controls and owner approvals would apply to any work beyond the awarded scope.
The borough did not vote at the special meeting. The bureau’s recommendation to allocate the additional $100,000 and the county agreement for the pavilion project are scheduled for the council’s next regular meeting, when council will consider formally authorizing the awards and contracts.
