AUBURN -- The city of Auburn will soon finalize payments for the East Genesee Street reconstruction project.

The Auburn City Council on Tuesday approved two change orders totaling more than $168,000, of which $13,390.14 will be paid to F. Rizzo Construction, Inc. The rest of the money will go to C&S Companies, an engineering and architectural company that designed the project and provided state-mandated inspections during the reconstruction.

Although the change orders were unanimously approved, some councilors questioned the city's responsibility for footing the bill.

Matt Smith wanted to know why the initial contract with C&S Companies for $663,464 was not all-inclusive and if the original contract stated the city would be liable for additional costs.

When projects such as this one are in the planning stages, the city and the company do their best to estimate the cost, said William Lupien, superintendent of engineering and services for the city of Auburn. If additional costs arise along the way, the city has an obligation to pay for them.

Since a majority of the $168,000 will be reimbursed through state or federal aid, the amounts requested on the change orders were not a major issue. The bigger concern for the councilors was that they don't get all of the information when they receive change order memos.

"When I get change orders, I want original contracts," Smith said. "We have to be looking out for our taxpayers and I have to look at all the information."

William Graney had a similar reaction.

While councilors get the change order memos on Friday, they don't get the rest of the information until five minutes before the meeting and they are expected to vote on it the same evening, he said.

City Manager Mark Palesh said he would look into changing the process to allow councilors more time to digest the information.

The city anticipates that out of the $154,790 paid to C&S Companies, $147,050 will be reimbursed, leaving the city responsible for a total of $7,739.50, or 5 percent. The money paid to F. Rizzo Construction, Inc., approximately $6.5 million, will be fully reimbursed and the city will actually net slightly more than $28,000 for that portion of the project.

Lupien said he is happy with the final result.

"I am very pleased at how this job came out. We had a very good contractor and an excellent engineering staff," he said. "We've had a lot of people very pleased."