Yesterday at the Marshall County Board of Supervisors meeting, one of the hot topics was the planned renovations to be made to the Marshall County Jail and Marshall County Sheriff’s Office. Following the six bids read off by Marshall County Auditor/Recorder Nan Benson, Lucas Baeke, the Building and Grounds Supervisor gave some unfortunate news.

Of the contractors that submitted bids, the closest of the six was Garling Construction out of Belle Plaine, Iowa, and their base bid was at $3.795 million, while the estimate was placed at just $2 million. Following the meeting, we spoke with Sheriff Joel Phillips on the what comes next.

Joel says he’s disappointed the numbers were so far off their original estimate, but he says there’s a silver lining in how close together all six bids were. He says it means they’ve been given fair numbers from the contractors, and now the work needs to be put in to see where and why the estimations were off.

David Braga, News Reporter KFJB