Orange Park reverses course on contractor dispute

The Orange Park Town Council, which had earlier denied paying approximately $26,000 over a purchase order for paving city streets, reversed course during its Oct. 18 meeting, voting to pay a county contractor the additional money. 

In July 2019, the city issued a $155,039 purchase order to resurface Sylvan Court, Debarry Avenue, Railroad Avenue and Holly Leaf Lane. The purchase order was later amended to approximately $164,000

The town piggybacked on a Clay County contract with Hubbard Construction to complete the work and relied on a Hubbard estimate to approve the project amount.

Hubbard completed the work in June 2022 and sent the town an invoice for $189,737, with the additional $26,000 resulting from an estimating error made by a Hubbard employee.

In September, the town council voted to deny the additional charge, and on Oct. 6, Hubbard sent a letter to the town demanding payment of the total invoiced amount.

During the town’s October meeting, Town Manager Sarah Campbell pointed out that although the town authorized a fixed price for the work, Hubbard’s contract with the county is based on a unit price.

“We did receive the actual quantities that they’re billing us for,” Campbell said. “Section 5.1 of the agreement states that payments will be made based on actual quantities provided, not estimates.”

Vice mayor Alan Watt said he hated to pay the additional amount, but from a legal and business practices standpoint, the town had no choice.

“What we have before us is a unit price contract,” he told his colleagues. “Therefore, legally, we owe them what they invoiced because of the unit price contract, and it’s not like we’re paying for something we didn’t get. We got the quantity that they’re invoicing us for. It’s just that we’re all used to lump-sum agreements.”

Watt agreed that Hubbard made the error on the estimate.

“But the bigger worry for me,” he added, “is if we don’t pay what the legally signed agreement calls for us to pay, that is going to do substantial damage to the town’s reputation.”

Watt said the road paving community in Northeast Florida is small and tightly knit, and if word got around that the town did not pay the invoice, it might find itself with no contractors willing to do future work in Orange Park.

The other council members agreed and instructed Campbell to negotiate with the contractor and authorized her to spend up to $26,000 to resolve the dispute with Hubbard.