The city of Coeur d’Alene is going forward with a contract with Northwest Grading to install a transmission main from the incoming Huetter Well, this after learning the project is expected to come in more than $200,000 under budget.

“We were kind of concerned whether the contractor had forgot something,” water department director Terry Pickel told the City Council at its Tuesday night meeting. “So I had Steve Cordes from Welch Comer, our engineer on the project … He went through (the) bid, made sure all the prices were correct and everything added up, called the owner — Bill Krick — and he is comfortable with everything he laid out there.”

Of the 11 companies with responsive bids on a project originally estimated at $535,200, Northwest Grading came in at $328,248.51, approximately $40,000 less than the next-lowest bidder.

“I thought it was a typo,” city administrator Troy Tymesen told The Press before the meeting. “I’m thrilled we get to save $200,000.”

That's $206,951.49, to be exact. The transmission line will be installed in late October or early November as a late-season job to keep Northwest Grading crews busy. While Pickel said he was hoping for an earlier completion date, the price was simply too low to ignore.

“It has to be done by spring for the new well, so there’s nothing critical about (the timeline)," Pickel said.

The Huetter Well will be the 11th in Coeur d’Alene’s arsenal. The new well will provide approximately five million gallons per day. The 18-inch main will move water from the Huetter Well to the Industrial Standpipe, cutting parallel with Downing Lane and along the Prairie Trail, though Pickel said construction shouldn’t impact the trail itself. Pedestrian traffic might be temporarily altered for safety reasons once installation begins.

News of the low bid provided a moment of financial joy in an otherwise joyless evening, where the council would later vote to pass a $103 million appropriations bill, one that awoke disagreements over whether the city would have enough funds to fill additional police sergeant positions, whether the city should dip into the general fund to balance the budget and whether or not the city could stake a claim to $687,000 in property tax funds if a state plan to help property owners is shot down in the courts.

“It’s awesome,” council president Woody McEvers told Pickel right before the council voted unanimously to approve the 18-inch water transmission main bid. “It’s nice to save money every once in a while, huh?”