The Southwest Light Rail Transit project has faced its share of tribulations. Cost overruns. Delays. Construction damage to a condo constructing. A critical audit. 

Now add a lawsuit. Michael Janish, a Metropolitan Council engineer who worked on the Southwest project, alleges he was demoted because he tried to rein within the change orders which have plagued the project and were among the many problems cited in an ongoing audit by the Minnesota Office of the Legislative Auditor. A pre-trial conference on the suit is scheduled Thursday in a federal courtroom in Minneapolis.

The lawsuit, filed in November, stems from the Met Council’s handling of change orders surrounding the development of the Southwest light rail project. Janish alleges within the lawsuit that the Met Council was overcharged because council staff manipulated the change order process in ways in which ensured cost estimates could be in step with what the development contractor believed was reasonable.

The Met Council has denied those claims in a follow-up court filing. In an announcement to MinnPost, the Met Council said the “allegations are wholly without merit and [we] will vigorously defend this lawsuit.” 

The project, which extends the Green Line 14.5 miles from Goal Field to Eden Prairie, was estimated at groundbreaking to cost $2 billion and was expected to open last 12 months. It’s now estimated to cost $2.86 billion and would open in 2027. Construction is greater than 75% complete. 

Janish, who worked on the project from 2015 to 2022, was the controls manager who oversaw contracts and alter orders. The lawsuit focuses on three change orders — a fraction of the 658 change orders on the project between March of 2019 and October of 2022 that added $219 million to the project’s cost, based on the legislative auditor. 

The Met Council has said the change orders, in addition to the development delays, are the results of difficult constructing conditions through the Minneapolis Chain of Lakes, in addition to the late addition of a railroad-mandated crash wall within the Bryn Mawr neighborhood. 

The three change orders Janish questions within the lawsuit include two wherein he alleges overestimates of labor stoppage time for when freight trains passed by construction sites. Within the third, Janish alleges contractors were paid for hours they didn’t work. 

The Met Council denies all of those allegations in its filing. The agency said cost estimates provided by AECOM Technical Services didn’t account for constructability and site constraints and that the Met Council didn’t require the corporate to account for site conditions in determining change order estimates. The Met Council ended its relationship with AECOM Technical Services for its cost estimating work and last 12 months tapped one other contractor for that work. 

Accountability mechanisms

Federal law requires all non-federal agencies that receive any type of federal funding to establish controls to point out they’re spending federal dollars properly, which incorporates clamping down on change orders. To comply with federal law, the Met Council developed the next process, based on each the Legislative Auditor and Janish’s filing:

1. Construction contractor or Met Council requests a contract change.
2. The Met Council determines if the change request must be a change order.
3. If that’s the case, the Met Council asks its independent cost estimator, AECOM Technical Services, to estimate how much it’s going to cost.
4. At the identical time, the development contractor is to estimate the prices of the change order.
5. The independent cost estimator submits its estimate before the development contractor submits its estimate.
6. The Met Council is presupposed to use each of those values to barter the ultimate cost of the change orders.

The Federal Transit Administration doesn’t approve change orders. The change orders are ultimately presented before a control board comprised of two Hennepin County commissioners, one Hennepin County Railroad Authority commissioner, the Met Council chair and the chair of the Met Council Transportation Committee, together with a non-voting Ramsey County commissioner. The FTA, nevertheless, keeps track of them to make sure they’re throughout the project’s scope.

The legislative auditor concluded staff weren’t forthright with terms of a number of the change orders, including not explaining to the control board they wanted to offer the contractor the flexibility to hunt more payment for delays. The auditor suggested to state lawmakers in June that the control board must have asked more questions.

RELATED: Auditor questions Met Council’s ability to oversee light rail projects

Janish alleges he was reprimanded for not approving at the least two change orders and was then demoted, being reassigned to the Blue Line extension project with fewer supervisory responsibilities. The Met Council argues in its filing that Janish was not demoted.

“Quite than terminating [Janish] for refusing to perform his job duties, the Council transferred Plaintiff to a comparable position on a distinct light rail project that will not require him to have interaction within the activities he had expressed concerns about,” the Met Council’s filing reads. 

While the lawsuit makes its way through federal court, the Office of the Legislative Auditor continues its financial audit of the Southwest light rail project, with one other report expected this spring.