Woodbury County LEC Authority changes the way it pays project managers on LEC project

SIOUX CITY (KTIV) - The Law Enforcement Center Authority is changing its payment method to the project manager, Baker Group.

From September to the end of February, the LEC Authority has been paying the Baker Group a flat rate of $32,013 a month to work to get the Law Enforcement Center to ‘final completion’.

Tuesday night, the LEC Authority approved a plan to pay the Baker Group at an hourly rate starting March 1st.

$135 an hour for the project executive, $125 an hour for the project manager, and $85 an hour for the project coordinator.

If the Baker Group believes it will exceed $32,000 in a single month, it will need to submit to the Authority in advance with the reason why the total would exceed that amount.

Mark Nelson was the only member of the three-person Authority to oppose that proposal, proposing the Authority should cap the amount paid to the Baker Group at $24,000 a month. The motion did not receive a second and the motion died.

”We’re at a point where there’s not as much going on, we’ve got to start shifting to doing some of the legal stuff," said Nelson. “What we don’t know is how much time is going to be needed tackle that stuff and I didn’t want to blindly go in with a wad of money that someone could chalk up time and bill us back for.”

According to Shane Albrecht, with the Baker Group, there are still five items that need to be completed and verified: testing and balancing issues, pipe bracing on the roof, seismic bracing report and certification, roof repairs, site seeding and grading, and paint and repairs on fencing.

At the meeting, Albrecht did not give a definitive timeline on when the Law Enforcement Center would reach ‘final completion’.

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