The city of Columbus will be changing the engineering firm it contracts with for a road improvement project on Rocky Ford Road.

Dave Hayward, the city engineer, told the Board of Public Works and Safety this morning that the previous city administration had agreed to a contract with United Consulting for the project, which will be sent out for bids soon. However, the new city engineer rescored the engineering bids for the project and instead decided to go with Janssen and Spaans Engineering.

Hayward said that the $694,000 contract would save the government about $42,000 but that was not considered during the scoring process and was not allowed to be a criteria for the decision.

The Board voted to approve the new contract.

The federal government will pick up 80 percent of the cost of the improvement project, which will improve Rocky Ford Road between Talley and Taylor roads.