Palmerton Area School District’s board of directors approved four change orders related to recent building improvements at the secondary campus and voted down two others Tuesday night.

Almost all of the change orders come from the recent junior high school addition.

The board denied a change order request from Penn Builders Inc., general contractor for the project, to add $11,733.33 for additional temporary heat while construction was ongoing at the junior high.

When it bid on the job, Penn Builders factored in heat over the winter months in early 2018, but it went over the budgeted amount.

Superintendent Scot Engler said he recommended the board turn down the change order request for extra money.

“In my travels throughout the project, I would go in after hours and, quite frequently the heat was running in the building with nobody there,” Engler said.

Penn Builders did receive a change order for $10,082 to repair a damaged wall in the existing junior high music room.

Engler said when crews were removing soundproofing materials from the room, they weren’t expecting it to be glued and laminated to the wall, which was damaged in the process.

Another change order, for $11,056, was the result of an architectural error, Engler said.

“The architect didn’t realize that a wall was continuing through the second floor, so that wall needed to be removed and rebuilt,” he said. “Even if it hadn’t been an architectural mistake, the work would have needed to be done anyway.”

George Hayden Electric received a $33,755 change order for security system enhancements.

“The initial intent was to tie into the existing security system, but they found the system to be too outdated and the entire security system at the secondary campus had to be upgraded,” Engler said.

Myco Mechanical also received a $12,498.21 change order.

“They didn’t realize there was one water feed coming into the secondary complex, so when they did the work at the junior high they had to reroute water so the high school could remain in operation,” Engler said.

The final proposed change order, which the board voted down, was an $80,935.64 quote from Penn Builders to construct two dugouts at the new district softball field.

“The request was made for a quote because people in the community had been talking about potential Title IX (a federal law dealing with gender equality) violations,” Engler said. “We wanted to begin taking action as a district. We talked with the township and got the UCC permit so we could start the process.”

Instead of awarding the job to Penn Builders, the board agreed to look into coming up with a design and having volunteers carry out the work.