Shutdown impacts city work

The recent shutdown of the federal government has negatively impacted the City of Clarendon’s water infrastructure project, costing the city money and delaying work on the project.

City Administrator David Dockery said work on Clarendon’s $3.1 million project stopped January 18 when the contractor pulled employees off the job amid concerns about payments. The project is funded by the US Department of Agriculture with a combination grant and loan to the city.

Both the city and the contractor incurred legal fees before the project was officially “paused” on January 28.

Both parties are scheduled to meet with USDA officials on February 5, and the contractor is expected to have workers back on site February 6.

Dockery said the project will have lost about three weeks of productivity by that time and said the major causes of the delay is that project contract has no provision for what happens if the government shuts down and payment requests for the contractor cannot be processed until they are approved by USDA.

Dockery said the city’s project is now behind schedule, and there is no guarantee that any future shutdown would not cause a similar disuption for the local project.

The federal government shut down for a historic 35-day period as President Donald J. Trump and Congress deadlocked over funding priorities, specifically the president’s border wall proposal. That impasse ended, at least temporarily, January 25 when national leaders came to an agreement to fund government operations until February 15.