MARSHALL — Construction of the new Marshall Aquatic Center will follow a policy designed to streamline approval of change orders, Marshall city staff said. On Tuesday, members of the Marshall City Council approved a resolution applying a 2019 city change order policy to the Aquatic Center Project.

Council member James Lozinski asked that the resolution be taken off the meeting’s consent agenda, so city staff could explain the policy for the public.

“This way, we state it to them so they know what the policy is,” Lozinski said.

Marshall City Administrator Sharon Hanson said the 2019 change order policy was adopted after projects like construction of the Red Baron Arena and Expo. During that project and some following city projects, every change order had to go before the council separately for approval, regardless of the value of the change order, Hanson said.

“And what occurred specifically with Red Baron was, time delays, construction delays, and costs that added. Moving forward after Red Baron, we did have that occur on some street projects as well, and there was discussion about how we could make this more efficient,” Hanson said.

Under the 2019 change order policy, she said, “In effect, if you were within the contingency of the project budget, you would not have to come back to council for approval.”

If the change orders exceeded the contingency for the project up to a certain level, the city administrator could approve them. If the changes exceeded contingency plus $25,000, they would need to go before city council, Hanson said.

“Once construction starts, we’re probably going to have reviews of the project,” Hanson told council members. That would allow council members a chance to ask questions or discuss issues that come up, she said.

In addition to authorizing city staff to follow the change order policy for the Aquatic Center project, the council also approved a resolution assigning the different construction contracts for the project to construction managers Contegrity Group.