“We need sidewalks on Highway 22. Kids are walking on a highway to get to school,” said Wells city administrator Robin Leslie.

There aren’t any new sidewalks for the Safe Routes To School (SRTS) project in Wells, yet. However, there is a reason for that, which was discussed in last Monday’s Wells City Council Meeting, and it is a little complicated.

The council passed a resolution to select a responsible bidder for contracted services and make a recommendation to the Faribault County Board of Commissioners to award selected bids.

Not only that, but the resolution requests once that decision is made by the commissioners, council will be requested to enter into contract with a selected contractor for the SRTS project.

The City Council already has money put aside in a matching fund, but it seems they have come up short, since the bids that did come in came in over budget.

Back in June, the council approved plans for the SRTS project made by city engineer Travis Winter. Later, the council opened and tabulated bids they re-ceived for the SRTS sidewalks project.

“The council has to select their bid, and then we will make that recommendation to the county, who is the sponsor for the project since our population is under 5,000,” said Leslie. She says the project will still be locally run.

After a few lengthy phone calls with the Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) to make sure she was on the up and up with costs and procedures, Leslie stated additional funds have been requested to close the gap between the projected cost of the project and the actual cost. Bids for the SRTS?project came in much higher than expected, something the city of Wells has heard once before just recently.

“Those additional dollars we are requesting are not guaranteed, because we don’t know if it’s all available through MnDOT, so we may not know if we have the extra funding until next month,” she said.

Other cities who have been awarded funding by MnDOT are required to inform MnDOT if they have used all of their funding or not. If there is money other cities have not spent, this could free up more financial help for Wells.

Wells did get additional dollars earlier this year when the council was projecting cost overruns. This required an additional dollar match by the city.

The original match the council approved last year was about $65,000. Then earlier this year council agreed to do an additional match, which brought it up to about $92,000. That is the number the council is at right now, which is guaranteed money.

Leslie had MnDOT work out scenarios that made the City Council aware of worst and best case scenarios for additional funding.

Wells’ best-case scenario is, having already spent $62,000 in engineering, Wells would need another $75,000 for construction.

“Best case is $140,000 total. That is if we get additional grant dollars. We are talking another $75,000 dollars we may have to spend next year if we don’t,” said Leslie.

If Wells does not get additional grant dollars, the council is looking at $230,000 to $260,000 total match dollars by the city.

“It’s a game changer,” says Leslie. “That’s why I wanted to make sure the council knew all of these numbers.”

Where the SRTS project is mapped out, a federal highway will be involved. That is making paperwork messy for the city administrator.

She says federal auditors are very strict about the agreements they make and right now, they are up in the air. The city may not be able to use the federal funding as a potential fund match. This tallies up to a possible $27,000 extra the city may have to pay out of its own pocket.

“Best case for the SRTS costs, the city has to pay $140,000 total match dollars. Worse case is $260,000. That’s where we are at,” says Leslie.

The project’s total cost is $478,772, which includes the cost of engineering, construction, and was the lowest bid the City Council looked at when they received bids for the Safe Routes project.

The council members not only looked confused with the run of numbers from Leslie, but they looked worried.

“Why do we have so many variables?” asked council member John Herman.

Leslie’s response was that the city has already received the grant money in the amount of $315,000, which is a guarantee.

But, because the bids for the project came in so much higher than originally planned, the council has to come up with the extra funds to complete the project.

“The reason I don’t have an answer for you for additional funding is because the people at MnDOT cannot go out and ask for additional funds until the council says we can come up with 20 percent, no matter what the cost is.”

The hope is to approve the bid and recommend it to the county, then, once approval is made by Faribault County, they will continue with their SRTS sidewalk project.

The City Council also:

Approved Land Preparation LLC of Wells to do snow removal for the winter season. The business, owned by Josh Ralmann, was the only bid for this year’s snow removal and comes at a cost of $5 more per hour than last year.

Received an update on the new junk ordinance from Chief of Police Tim Brennigan. He states police have towed four vehicles and have three or four left to remove. Private property owners have been doing well in removing their own vehicles off of their lots.