Members of the Montezuma County Hospital district board reacted with shock and dismay Wednesday night when they learned that it will cost $16,000 for several more change orders associated with an emergency room expansion project at Southwest Memorial Hospital.

The board reluctantly agreed to pay for the changes in order to avoid delaying the $1.4 million project. They expressed concerns that some cost overruns appear to be negligent mistakes that could have been avoided, and therefore should be reimbursed back to the district once the project is completed.

To date there have been 18 approved change orders totalling $61,568, or 4.5 percent of the original contracted price.

"I feel like we are being backed into a corner and have no other choice or control of these change orders," said Board Chairman Randy Smith. "We need to investigate some of these after the project is completed."

The change orders approved at a special meeting Wednesday included:

• The addition of upgraded hardware to hold new Skytron lighting fixtures in the ER. Cost: $2,040. Southwest Health System, the hospital’s management non-profit governing board, has already agreed to pay for the upgrade in the lights, according to SHS Chairman John Greenemeier.

• Pipe connections for the medical gas alarm panel. The piping requirements were not shown on the drawings, but the panel was. The board agreed to absorb the cost of the $719 connections, subject to a confirmation that they were not already included in the original bid.

• Fire alarm enunciator panels that indicate which area of the hospital is in danger in case of fire. Cost: $8,386

• Moving a 75 kva transformer from inside to a concrete pad outside, about 20 feet away. Electrical codes do not allow any transformer over 50 kva to be installed indoors. Architect plans showed the 75 kva, but after it was installed it was discovered that it violated requirements. Cost: not to exceed $5,500.

Project Manager John Hutchison pointed out that on a large projects such as the one at Southwest Memorial Hospital, problems and some mistakes are inevitable. Hutchison said that "for a remodel, it is considered excellent if you do not go over 10 percent of the original cost and we are only 4.5 percent. The contractor (FCI) has been very cooperative regarding some of these problems."

Smith questioned whether the board was responsible for the costs of fire alarm panels because an existing panel that was mistakenly overlooked would have sufficed. According to Hutchison, the alarm panel was ordered by Interim Cortez Fire Marshal Robert Carter because architect drawings did not identify the existing one. By the time the oversight was realized, extensive preliminary work had already been completed to wire up to the new panel. He added that the new panel will be much more accessible for fire crews, but noted that the old panel "might have sufficed" if it was known beforehand that it existed.

"I’m sorry; if there is a panel there then it should have been used," Smith said. "I am not for paying $8,000 for a panel when the existing one would have worked. This does not make sense to me, I think somewhere along the way somebody dropped the ball."

Concerning the change order to move the transformer, Boardmember Don Jolovich felt that the architect was negligent in overlooking the code requirements when placing the 75 kva transformer where it would not meet code.

"I feel that this needs to be looked into after the project is completed; it’s a violation of code and it is the responsibility of designers to comply with those requirements during the planning stage," Jolovich said. "Also that much to move something just blows my mind."