The Putnam Township Board of Trustees approved $10,000 in additional spending for its new $1.5 million fire hall Wednesday after construction costs ran higher than estimated.
Township Treasurer Pat Carney said the project, which began in late June, did not have a contingency built in to handle any additional costs to the project, leaving the board with little option but to approve the $10,000.
Carney said $10,000 was only about 1 percent of the entire project's cost.
The extra money will come from the township's fire capital outlay fund. The Garrison Co. is handling construction of the project.
"Things aren't always quite the way you plan them to be," Carney said. "When we got to looking at the specs for a few things, they needed to be upgraded. Little things need to be a little different, and a few things had to be bought."
Carney added that weather conditions have slowed construction by two weeks, leaving mid-November as the expected date for completion.
"We're behind a little, but not alarmingly so," Carney said.
Voters approved an equipment-millage modification in November to allow for the project. The millage is for the same 0.4695-mill rate it has been in the past, which would cost the owner of a $200,000 home (with a taxable value of $100,000) taxes of $47 annually, but the altered language allows the Putnam Township Fire Department to put some of the money toward building the fire hall.
The new fire hall is off M-36 about a mile west of Pinckney, thereby negating traffic issues on Dexter-Pinckney Road and Main Street that have plagued the current fire hall since its construction in 1973.
At 80 feet by 164 feet, the new fire hall will also have six full bays and a half-bay, which is enough storage for the township's tankers, ladder truck and other additional equipment.
Carney said the township has a few options regarding what to do with the old fire hall, including putting it up for sale. Early price estimates, he said, aren't very favorable, though.
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