Butler County taxpayers have patiently awaited good news about the prison construction project.

But instead of long-awaited good news, they have gotten more bad news — that they'll be on the hook for at least an additional $400,000 for a project that already has skyrocketed in cost to $40 million from the original $30 million estimate. The Massaro Corp. of Pittsburgh, the proj-ect's construction manager, has informed the county that it will be submitting a request for no less than $400,000 because it anticipates having to be on the job for a year beyond its original timetable.

Meanwhile, there might be another previously unanticipated cost lurking in the future, if the project's architect, L. Robert Kimball and Associates of Ebensburg, Cambria County, submits an additional bill tied to the project's missed construction-completion deadline. That original deadline was Oct. 13, 2007.

At this point, with the project's general contractor, A.G. Cullen Construction of Pittsburgh, having walked off the job in December due to a payment dispute, and the prospect of having to rebid the remainder of the general contract creating uncertainty about the financial impact of that move, county taxpayers are justified in feeling frustrated about what has been a plannning boondoggle by the previous board of commissioners.

The former board erred from the start in not permitting a flexible construction-completion window taking into account problems beyond Cullen's control, and in not making contract stipulations on responsibility for certain costs associated with any delay not ultimately the fault of the general contractor — or any other contractor working at the South Washington Street construction site.

A delay in obtaining structural steel put Cullen behind schedule from the get-go, setting Cullen up for $1,000-a-day "fines" or actual costs associated with housing prisoners in other counties' lockups. And, among other payment issues, a dispute arose over who would pay winter heating costs, since last October's project completion date was not able to be met and project planning ignored that possibility.

Completion of the prison by the original target date would have been a political feather in the cap for the previous commissioners, only one of whom, James Kennedy, still is a commissioner. Inflexibility, coupled with poor perception of potential setbacks and how to deal with them in a fair, mutually agreeable way, has created a construction and financial mess for which county property owners will be paying dearly for many years.

Cullen erred in accepting the locked-in completion date, and by failing to demand stipulations for circumstances beyond its control. But county government made a mistake by taking the inflexible attitude it displayed from the beginning of the project.

Meanwhile, the new board of commissioners didn't go out of its way to quickly inform the taxpayers about the prospect of having to pay at least $400,000 to Massaro for additional prison-related services. A letter to county solicitor Julie Graham from Massaro president Joseph A. Massaro III, dated Jan. 15, only became public this month.

However, the new board still is working to get up to speed on the full scope of the project, so taxpayers can be forgiving in this delay in releasing the unwelcome information.

When questioned about the development regarding Massaro, commissioners chairman Dale Pinkerton acknowledged that the project's delays and extra costs are a concern, but that it was too soon to determine whether Massaro's $400,000 request would be reasonable. However, he said, Massaro's projection of a full-year delay in construction completion likely wouldn't occur.

Taxpayers should hope he's right.

The last timetable put forth by Cullen anticipated project completion in May of this year. Prison officials estimated there also would be a 90-day transition period beyond the completion before the prison could begin full operation.

With nearly two months having passed since Cullen's departure, and no end in sight regarding the current project limbo, it is reasonable to estimate that the new prison won't be open until sometime in 2009. If a protracted legal morass occurs in response to what stance Cullen's insurer, Travelers Casualty and Surety Co., decides to take over Cullen's decision to wipe its hands of the project, it's anyone's guess what impact that will have on the project.

County taxpayers are on the hook for whatever happens; that's the one certainty. And, like a fish that has swallowed a hook, taxpayers, as long as they own property in the county, won't escape the troubling financial fallout from this project.

More and more, it seems good news about the prison is out of the question.