Bellevue officials disagree on whether there is sufficient funding to perform an engineering study necessary to rehabilitate the parking lot adjacent to the borough building.

With the committee originally charged with overseeing the borough hall renovation project disbanded when Kathy Coder took over as council president last winter, the proposal regarding the parking lot was brought to council’s public works committee for preliminary review. When the building committee was disbanded, it was decided that council as a whole would make decisions on the project. Nothing was mentioned by public works committee chairman Jerry Walter at the May 27 council meeting, however. According to committee member Jane Braunlich, Walter and member Mike Kutschbach had decided at the committee meeting to reject the proposal.

The question at issue is whether Bellevue should spend about $4,500 for an engineering study for the parking lot. Public works supervisor Tony Barbarino said that paving the cinder parking lot was excluded from the current renovation project, but that plans needed to be made now so that changes to the building would be consistent with paving the lot later.

Walter said that council could vote to approve the expense, but that the committee’s recommendation was to reject the expense because there was no money available to pay for it.

Walter maintained that the building project already was $100,000 over budget. He later alleged that the project was $22,000 over budget.

Director of administrative services Connie Flasher said, however, that a $122,000 contingency fund built into the project funding would easily pay for the additional engineering work.