THE Commonwealth Ports Authority on Wednesday approved a supplemental budget in the amount of $648,954 for the replacement of an explosive detection system or EDS at the Francisco C. Ada/Saipan International Airport.
Present in the board meeting were CPA Chairwoman Kimberlyn King-Hinds, board members Pete P. Reyes, Ramon Tebuteb, Thomas P. Villagomez and Joseph Diaz.
The EDS replacement project, which includes construction management, is funded by the Transportation Security Administration, but CPA Project Manager Wendi Prater requested the board for local funds because it will take TSA a couple of months to allocate federal funding for the project.
The original amount allotted for the EDS replacement project is $11.1 million. The $648,954 supplemental budget is for the project’s Change Order No. 3.
Prater said they have been advising TSA since January that there were changes to the project identified by TSA technicians.
TSA told CPA that it needed to submit a supplemental funding request by end of February, “which we did,” Prater said.
She then received a notice from TSA informing CPA that the funding request and scope of work were “acceptable.”
The only problem is that it takes a couple of months for the federal agency to allocate the funding, Prater said.
That’s why she was asking the CPA board to approve a supplemental budget for Change Order No. 3 so work on the project can continue.
Prater said CPA cannot afford to wait for a couple of months for the drawdown of federal funds because the contractor will start accumulating standby costs.
In fact, she said, CPA is already paying standby costs for the change order since the machines came in weeks ago.
Prater said according to TSA, CPA will be reimbursed once the federal funds are available.
