State Auditor Recommends Greater Oversight After Cheney Project

Cheney Stadium: under budget, with cost overruns.

… Wait, what?

You could be forgiven for being a little confused on that one. There’s more to it of course, but boiled down to the most basic level, the project ended up costing a few million less than was budgeted (hence “under budget”), but several hundred thousand more than the bid (cost overruns).

And it’s those cost overruns that are again getting closer scrutiny. The overruns were a result of change orders to the contract awarded to Mortenson Construction. The changes were approved by project manager Rick Melvin, despite the fact that several were over the $200,000 purchasing threshold that usually triggers review. All this went public last year, and Melvin was let go.

The news now, according to the TNT’s Lewis Kamb, is that a State audit has recommended that the City make procedural changes to stop this kind of thing from happening again.

State auditors reviewing the city’s renovation of Cheney Stadium have recommended Tacoma to “strengthen internal controls” over the way changes are approved for contracted public works projects.

Let’s see … new City Manager, a changing of top leadership, and an increased scrutiny of every single dollar. Okay, sounds plausible.

Read more from The News Tribune.

Previously from Exit133: Cheney Stadium news.