The City of Jefferson is looking to recoup some of the money for a utility project that surpassed its targeted completion date.

The City Council approved Scharnweber Water Conditioning as the contractor to build a new lift station to handle the added sewer capacity of Wild Rose Jefferson.  The project completion date was June 15th, which is about three months past the intended target when the lift station was finished earlier this month.  Because of that, City Administrator Mike Palmer says they are looking into possible liquidated damages.

“There’s still money left to negotiate on it because they are quite a bit past their contract date.  But that’s just a normal state of business where we will go back and look to see what liquidated damages maybe for going past their due date for so long.”

Another project was to rehabilitate a 12-inch interceptor line to carry sewer services from Wild Rose Jefferson to the wastewater treatment plant.  That project was handled by Hydro-Klean.

These two parts were the final two phases of an overall four phase project to extend utilities to Wild Rose Jefferson.  The first phase was a utility study, along with water and sanitary construction, which were both completed last year.

Palmer says funding for the proposed $1.8 million project is through tax increment financing, which is from the new taxes created by the casino.