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Haywood County authorizes negotiation with Vannoy Construction, approves $1.1M to fund new EMS base
Summary
The commission authorized negotiations with Vannoy Construction for an EMS satellite at Russ Avenue and approved a $1,107,713 budget amendment composed of $820,487 in bond interest and $287,226 in fund balance to reach the guaranteed maximum price.
The Haywood County Board of Commissioners on Dec. 16 authorized county staff to negotiate a guaranteed-maximum-price contract with Vannoy Construction for a new EMS satellite at Russ Avenue and approved a related budget amendment of $1,107,713 to fund the project.
Tim Sisk, the county facilities director, described the request as authorization to negotiate with Vannoy for construction of the EMS base at the Russ Avenue and Mooney Cove site and to allow the county manager to sign contract documents. "This is a request approval to contract with or negotiate contract with Vannoy for the construction of our EMS based satellite…" Sisk said.
Lance Hanyam from the contractor team said much of the price change between earlier estimates and the guaranteed maximum price resulted from a change in prevailing-wage assumptions and increased competition among subcontractors, which in this case lowered some costs. He also said the project timeline is expected to be roughly eight months, with construction beginning in spring 2025. "Right now, we show this as an 8 month duration to build, and we were tracking that it would begin sometime spring 2025," Hanyam said.
Finance Director Christian told the board the budget amendment will appropriate $820,487 in interest earned on 2024 limited-obligation bonds (LOBs) and $287,226 from fund balance to reach the GMP. "We have earned in just a few months, $820,487 on our LOBs that we issued earlier this year," Christian said.
The board approved both the authorization to negotiate with Vannoy Construction and the budget amendment by voice vote. Commissioners said most project costs will be covered by recovery grants and other external funding, and that local dollars for both the Russ Avenue EMS base and a related armory project are expected to total less than $350,000 combined.
Why it matters: County officials said the new EMS base will improve emergency response times across the county and leverage grant and recovery funds to limit local taxpayer burdens. The budget amendment supplies the final local funding needed to reach the contractor's GMP.
Next steps: County staff will finalize GMP negotiations with Vannoy Construction and move toward contract execution and spring 2025 mobilization.
