JACKSON — Members of the Jackson School District Board of Education have apparently had enough of an architect’s additional charges for work being performed.

The board voted 4-3 on Jan. 17 not to pay a $2,405 increase in a contract with DiCara Rubino Architects for its work on kitchen renovations at Jackson Memorial High School.

District administrators said this was the second time in two months the firm requested additional payment for its work on the project.

“There was an issue last month, there is an issue this month, and the board doesn’t want to keep seeing changes, even though [the firm] was directed by my office to make the changes,” Business Administrator Michelle Richardson said.

The adjustment this month, according to an item on the meeting agenda, is due to “additional services for re-bid of project.” Last month’s adjustment cost about $6,400.

Although the work was requested by Richardson’s office, she said the situation came about after the architect failed to discuss the additional charges prior to presenting them to the board.

The apparent breakdown in communication caused four of the seven board members to take exception to the changes and vote no on the adjustments.

“We really should have had a quote prior to work being done,” board Vice President Tracey Murnane said. “It just seems like this is the third meeting in a row where they are asking for additional funds … It just doesn’t seem like normal practice to me.”

Taking a different view of the issue, board member Marvin Krakower said he believes the architect simply “wants to get paid for the change (the board) asked them to do.”

With the work already completed and the monetary adjustment rejected, Superintendent of Schools Thomas Gialanella said there were a couple of options still on the table for both parties.

“From our point of view, we will go back to the architect and explain the board’s feeling. If the architect wants to come before the board or write a more detailed explanation, he would have that option,” Gialanella said.

The school board’s attorney, Nicholas Montenegro, advised the board members that the architectural firm could also potentially have some legal action.

For a project that was three years in the making, a $935,000 contract for construction was awarded to 3R Painting and Contracting in September. Work has already begun on one of Jackson Memorial’s kitchens, while the second half of the project is slated to begin in July.

“Right now we have gotten to the point where they have done the flooring for the project and that is as far as we’ve gotten so far,” Richardson said.

Officials said the kitchen renovation project remains on schedule to be completed before the start of the 2012-13 school year.

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