With the stock market going down and poverty in Kansas rising, what's the safest bet for tripling your money?

Become a state renovation project.

It was just over ten years ago when the state first discussed making a much-needed $90 million repair job on the Kansas statehouse in Topeka. Work started in 2001, and so did the spending.

The initial estimated cost has now risen to a figure three times the original. And costs are still going up.

As the Topeka Capital-Journal recently observed, the main culprits are the usual ones: an expansion of the project (a new copper dome, new offices, an underground parking area and the like) and rising material costs. The paper talked to a construction official and found this:

Costs are expected to rise 15 percent this year because of increased costs of steel, copper, aluminum, oil and other goods. Contractors were able to lock in prices for current work, but the jump in costs of materials could hit home when bids go out for new work in August 2009. And so the cost will keep right on rising.

As the paper reported, "skyrocketing material costs could push the price tag even higher than the current $285 million estimate."

A look at the minutes of the Kansas Capitol Restoration Commission, meeting back in December 2005 showed there was voiced concerned then for inflation and the budget, and what would happen to some of the estimates. The commission subsequently vowed to "try and prepare for the unexpected."

According to J.E. Dunn, the general contractor responsible for the renovation, the project is expected to be completed by 2011.

However, according to commission meeting minutes, Dunn used a company called ENR to estimate the project's costs. When the costs began to go off-target, Dunn generated its own index and projected inflation to continue in the low double-digit range through 2007. Dunn will be asking for new bids in 2009, and costs are expected to make another jump then.

Renovation on the south wing, including the governor's office, will start in early August. The north wing, which will include a visitors center not originally part of the renovation mission, will come later.

Cost overruns are a worry there, too. “The north wing, of course, is problematic with the project inflation, which means we're going to overrun the budget significantly,” House Speaker Melvin Neufeld told KTKA's Marshanna Hester.

Neufeld said he didn't know how much the renovation would cost. “At this point, the Legislature is not appropriating any general fund money on this project and what it really means is how much debt the state has.”

The renovation has uncovered some important works of art and filled in a lot of cracks in the ancient plaster - including a hole in the House chamber ceiling allegedly made when Boston Corbett, an early sergeant-at-arms, fired his pistol in the air to restore order during a particularly contentious debate. Corbett is better known as the Union soldier who shot and killed John Wilkes Booth. The statehouse construction began just after the Civil War.

Not everyone is worried about the renovation's costs, however. "This is a project we are very proud of," senate president Steve Morris told a repoter from the Lawrence Journal-World.

Neufeld, however, hinted work could grind to a halt if costs can't be contained.

- Rebecca Sisk

for KansasLiberty.com

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