Errors delay Utah County Jail expansion, boost costs

SPANISH FORK — There are at least four ways to kill someone with a toilet seat.

Utah County sheriff's deputy Mark Johnson demonstrates one. Angled against the wall in a housing pod of the new section of the Utah County Jail, a toilet seat bears the brunt of his aggression and snaps almost in half. The result? A knife-sharp edge that if forced into an inmate's neck would be fatal.

That's not usually a problem because jails don't have toilet seats. At least, they're not supposed to.

However, the expansion of the Utah County Jail received toilet seats for the toilets in the new housing areas. Utah County Sheriff Jim Tracy was surprised by the shipments and other incidents that have caused major delays and cost thousands of taxpayer dollars in the creation of the new section.

Some county officials are angry about the mistakes they believe were made by the contractor and architect — mistakes they feel should be paid by the contractor but have been billed to the county. They estimate that the contractor, Comtrol, has charged the county $780,000 for change orders that were oversights by the contractor or architect, not the county.

Sorting out who should pay for what could require a lawsuit, said Utah County Commissioner Gary Anderson.

From the toilet seats to omitted monitor screens, multiple mistakes have been reported. There are structural beams that don't connect to columns and end in the middle of doors. An air conditioning unit was omitted.

Originally billed as a $20 million project, the county has spent that and blown through most of the $2 million contingency budget set aside for contract changes made at the county's request. More needs to be done, and funds are limited.

With projects that are bid out, contractors make most of their money on the change orders and not necessarily on the project itself, Anderson said. After the design is complete, if something needs to be changed there are two categories those changes can fit into — errors and omissions and "value added." Any changes deemed errors and omissions will be covered by the contractor or architect; any changes that are value added will be charged to the building entity.

County officials believe they've been charged for errors and omissions and don't want to pay for those.

"We've been charged for things that should have been charged under errors and omissions," said Utah County Commissioner Steve White.

Contractors predict the jail should be done in September, nearly a year after original projections, Anderson said.