The ad hoc committee for the city’s proposed new public safety and municipal court complex met Monday with Huntly Gordon, executive vice-president of New South Construction Company, to discuss the most recent cost estimates for the project.

Design and construction of the facility, which will be funded by a $23 million general obligation bond passed last September by city voters, cannot exceed $19.2 million, because New South has calculated $3.8 million in expenditures.

The projected cost for a contract with New South for its construction proposal — plus the cost to construct a two-story training facility and firing range adjacent to the main public safety facility — will cost $354,031 over budget based on the construction firm’s most recent estimate.

The projected overall cost includes $198,000 for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification for both proposed buildings, which is now required of all new city-owned facilities, and $150,000 for a stone finish in the public lobby.

“This will really enhance the ‘wow’ factor of walking into this building, with it being the flagship that it is,” Gordon said of the proposed stone finish.

The most recent figure does not include a separate building for the K-9 unit.

“It’d be great to have it, but we can do without it for now in order to make the training facility work,” Douglasville Police Chief Chris Womack said.

The most recent price for the project also excludes the recently-proposed $642,000 vehicle care center and $300,000 culvert-based secondary access road.

Womack said the proposed second building will add a lot to this project, as it will provide classroom space upstairs for police-sponsored programs like Youth Against Violence and the Citizen’s Police Academy and an indoor firing range downstairs.

The city currently does not have a firing range, Womack said, so they have to rent in advance an outdoor range from the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office,

“This firing range is a ‘need’ and not a ‘want’,” Womack said.

Councilman Dennis McLain, member of the ad hoc committee, suggested the committee consider if extra funds should potentially be spent on a second building when the public was initially only promised the main facility.

“I think when we try to spend $23 million instead of get what we were supposed to, we are threading on dangerous ground,” McLain said.

Gordon said the firing range could be located inside the main facility if the city decides it does not need the second building.

The $3.8 million in expenditures subtracted from the bond amount include various legal and design fees, a contingency line item and funds to go back into the city’s General Fund to replace the $2.2 million spent in August 2007 on the 22 acres of city-owned land south of Interstate 20 adjacent to Hillside Drive on Fairburn Road, which is the facility’s future site.

The expenditures also includes $600,000 for the renovation of one of the Douglasville Police Department’s current buildings into a downtown precinct.

Mayor Mickey Thompson said he feels this expenditure on renovations is necessary because the public has been promised a downtown precinct.

According to Womack, an officer who lives near the downtown area has already volunteered to work the precinct.

The City Council will further discuss the projected costs for the police facility tonight at its 7:30 p.m. legislative work session.