SANDPOINT — On Wednesday evening, the Sandpoint City Council voted 4-1 to approve a change order that will add $106,000 to the Travers Park playground and splash pad project. The supplement will cover the cost of “additional alternative items” not originally included in the contract awarded to Ginno Construction of Idaho in a June 5 vote.

The primary new item for the project is a pump system that will enable water from the splash pad to be reused for landscape irrigation. Community Planning and Development Director Jason Welker described the system as “a great idea” and estimated the initial $70,000 investment will pay for itself in a few years.

“We'll be irrigating the landscaping using one round of water instead of paying for water twice,” Welker said in the July 3 meeting. He added that Mayor Jeremy Grimm had requested the system.

The remaining $36,000 in the change order will fund the construction of a berm, asphalt path, and rock retaining wall. These features will complement an ADA-accessible slide as part of a new playground at the park.

Welker explained that the city slashed other alternative features to minimize cost and described the additions enabled by the change order as “the bare minimum for what we would like to accomplish.”

The project began with a budget of $1.12 million, but the lowest offer the city received in the bidding process required an extra $86,000. After Wednesday’s change order, the total additional cost is now $192,000.

To cover the new expenses, the city intends to dip into Sandpoint’s parks capital improvement fund, which contains around $200,000. In a June 5 meeting, Welker explained that if the Travers Park project had not gone over budget, the fund would have been used to resurface existing public tennis courts or to design a dog park and a non-motorized boat launch.

Some council members expressed dissatisfaction with the rising cost of the project. Councilor Kyle Schreiber questioned why features like the berm that are likely essential to the project were not included as part of the original bid.

Others at the meeting encouraged the council to bite the bullet on the added cost.

 “We are where we are right now with this playground,” Council President Deb Ruehle said. “The cake is almost baked and we’ve got to put the last bit of frosting on.”

Grimm went on to explain that the project had been initiated and originally budgeted by a previous administration. “We could have done better — I’m sorry,” Grimm said. “It's a project many of us inherited and we have the budget authority through other savings to do it as proposed to the public.”

The playground and splash pad are scheduled to be completed by the end of November, at the same time as the nearby James E. Russell Sports Center.