A clerical error cost Angelo Iafrate Construction Inc., Warren, MI, the $80-million plus contract for road reconstruction on part of Route 30, Lancaster County, PA.

Iafrate had been named the apparent low bidder back in late June, but a careful review of the paperwork and math by officials of the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT) recently uncovered a clerical error by Iafrate’s staff.

State officials discovered that Iafrate had apparently miscalculated the cost of steel reinforcing bars by $1.4 million. PennDOT announced that Iafrate’s bid totaled only $77.8 million, not the $79.4 million the company had originally presented.

“Their initial bid was $79.4 million. It was the lowest and the winning bid. But, we reserve the right to recalculate the bids. In looking over Iafrate’s bid, there were pricing differentials in the steel. We redid the bids. Iafrate told us they couldn’t do it at the recalculated cost of $77 million and asked to be removed from the process,” explained Mike Cruchonis, PennDOT spokesman.

The contract instead went to Dick Corp, of Pittsburgh, PA, with a bid of $87.4 million for the reconstruction and rehabilitation of the eastern section of Route 30, between Routes 222 and 462.

Iafrate offered to do the job for the original mis-stated price of $79.4 million, but PennDOT does not allow companies vying for road jobs to change their bids.

“Legally, we just can’t do that,” said Cruchonis. “We would be leaving the door open for companies to come in and intentionally bid low and then change their bids after they got the job. That’s certainly not what happened here, but we can’t leave that door.”

Dick Corp is already slated to do the reconstruction on the western end of the Route 30 project. Dick won that contract with a bid of $45.7 million. Hempt Bros. Inc. of Camp Hill, PA, came in second with a bid of $50.6 million.

Cruchonis said the bidding error was unfortunate, but had to be addressed.

“It is not something that happens a lot, especially with a large job like this,” he said.

But, it was not all a loss for Iafrate. The Michigan firm was the low bidder at $21.3 million for another PennDOT project — the reconstruction and relocation of roads, including SR 0015 and SR 2004 and SR 8047 in Cumberland and York counties.

The big loser in the ongoing Route 30 construction is Balfour Beatty, the British construction firm doing the reconstruction of the center portion of Route 30. The company is being barred from working in Pennsylvania for a minimum of three years because it did not “adequately address” various matters regarding its performance on the Route 30 project.

Balfour Beatty began work on the $83.8-million reconstruction in October 1996. The work was supposed to be completed by September 1999. The completion date has been pushed back twice and the work is not yet completed.

The state and Balfour Beatty recently reached an agreement in which PennDOT dropped its claim to more than $5 million in fines after Balfour Betty put up a $6.6-million bond to cover any future delays.

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