A storm sewer improvement project in the middle of Manteno was awarded at Monday’s board meeting to a local contractor, Allied Water, for $368,867.

The contract, however, didn’t come about without debate.

Allied Water Service’s bid was approximately $133,000 less than the next lowest bidder among four bids and was almost $73,000 less than the engineer’s estimate of $441,340. The board also questioned whether the company would be paying prevailing wages.

Village Administrator Chris LaRocque explained that it’s a state requirement to pay prevailing wage, whether the company is union or non-union. That requirement is part of the bid package, and that information must be submitted to a state portal.

Allied Water Services owner Christopher Friedsam was in attendance at the meeting, and he said his company is non-union, but a subcontractor he will be using for part of the work is union. On Demand Boring & Utilities of Lombard will be doing the boring work.

The motion to award the contract passed 5-0 with one abstention. Trustees Michael Barry, Peggy Vaughn, CJ Boudreau, Todd Crockett and Annette Zimbelman voted in favor, while Trustee Joel Gesky abstained.

The other bidders were KVCC of Kankakee for $501,946, M&J Underground of Monee for $521,081 and Tenco Excavating of Bourbonnais for $567,375.

Friedsam, who has lived in Manteno for seven years, said they are a small company in Manteno and drive through the village daily.

“Our original bid, done by our bid guy, was $415,000 and I was like, ‘You know what? This is a local community, and we’re part of it. Let’s lower our profit percent by about 10% in order for us to be able to achieve the goal,’ ” he said.

Friedsam also said his company has done considerable residential work and has received numerous good reviews on its work.

“We work with residential homes every single day and strive on the quality that we give to our customers,” he said,

Barry, who was serving as mayor pro tem because Mayor Annette LaMore was out of town on vacation. He talked to Bruce Hill, of HR Green Inc., the village’s engineer, and Hill vetted Allied Water and approved the bid to be awarded to the company.

“If the company wants to come and they want to save the town [$133,000], I don’t see why, if they’re filling out everything they had to fill out, why we wouldn’t accept this,” Barry said before the vote.

Crockett added that he wanted to make sure the village is dotting all the I’s and crossing all the T’s.

“I’ve been very adamant about making sure that these homeowners are going to be disrupted as little as possible,” he said. “The timeframe could be accelerated so that they don’t have their backyards torn up for any extended period of time.”

The work is expected to begin within the next week in a residential area east of Interstate 57, north of Division Street and south of 1000N Road, LaRocque said.