Story posted Wednesday, June 10, 2009
City Saves By Bidding New AC
By CRAIG ADAMS Journal & Topics Reporter
Is an air conditioner on its last legs an emergency? Are the city's computers safe if it goes out? Is an expense a budget hit if it gets reimbursed?
Park Ridge Committee of the Whole wrestled with these questions on Monday, June 8 while deciding if it should pay for a new air conditioning unit for City Hall.
The committee learned about the leak in the 70-ton chiller unit on May 11. At that time, Public Works Director Wayne Zingsheim explained the unit was running at half its capacity and might not be adequate for the summer. He located a replacement unit and found a company willing to install it within a few weeks for $84,000.
However, the committee chose to go through a bidding process, even though the city would lose the unit Zingsheim found and push the project back into late summer.
On June 8, Zingsheim reported on the bid opening that saved the city $3,400; Kroeschell of Arlington Hts. agreed to perform the replacement for $80,600. He also reported that the replacement unit he tried to hold was gone, but the city should be able to get one in six or seven weeks. He added that no one bid to repair the unit, an alternative the committee members wanted to explore.
"They said they couldn't get parts and didn't want to repair something this old," Zingsheim explained. "No one would take on the job for repairing."
Aldermen discussed if the expense was an emergency expenditure, based on Mayor Dave Schmidt's statement that he would veto any non-emergency over-budget spending.
"I guess the term emergency could be expanded to absolute necessity," Schmidt said during the discussion.
"The budget is a spending plan," added City Manager Jim Hock. "You plan for replacements, but emergencies come along."
Ald. Jim Allegretti (4th) echoed concerns Zingsheim had at the May meeting. He worried about damage to the city's computer systems if the air conditioning stopped working.
"I don't know if that's a risk that we should take," he said. "Rather than trying to outsmart Mother Nature... I think we just have to say every so often something's going to come up that we're going to just have to bite the bullet for."
Zingsheim added that the server room has a secondary air conditioning system, but the IT department worried it is not sufficient if the primary system completely fails.
"Is there some cut we could make in the budget?" asked Ald. Don Bach (3rd). He requested Hock remove $80,000 of spending from another area to rationalize the expenditure.
However, Hock offered another alternative. "This was one project that may be eligible for reimbursement by the federal government," he said. "Hopefully we will get reimbursed for this unforeseen budget item." He explained the city is allocated $158,000 for projects related to saving energy.
Bach worried that the grant might not materialize and asked Hock again to find the money in the current budget. "I'm not willing to add to our current deficit," he said. "It's only an emergency after it breaks, in my mind."
However, the committee sent the approval on to city council by a vote of 3–1 with Bach dissenting. Aldermen Robert Ryan (5th) and Thomas Carey (6th) were absent from the meeting.
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