By MIKE COURSON
Great Bend Post
The brunt of the HVAC Renovation Project at the Barton County Courthouse is in the rearview mirror, but smaller pieces of the project continue to trickle in. During Tuesday's Barton County Commission meeting, County Administrator Matt Patzner presented a change order for door work in the building.
"Essentially what happened here is, when they designed the project, they had budgeted to repaint 15 doors with the idea that, if there were any additional doors, that would be taken care of with the $20,000 we had in contingency," he said.
The $20,000 contingency had already been used on other projects, and the door project expanded from about 15 doors to between 50 and 60 doors. The commission approved the change order at $16,816, and Commissioner Shawn Hutchinson noted the work included much more than a fresh coat of paint.
"When you hear painting doors, you don't think it could be that expensive," he said. "It turns out, it's not just painting doors. They actually sanded the doors down, Bondo-ed, puttied, sanded again, and then two coats of paint. They said working on these doors was more like bodywork on a car than just painting a door."
Commissioner Duane Reif reiterated that the small parts of the renovation project are all part of making the courthouse last a long time. The board voted 4-0 to approve the change order.