Contractor Sues City of Salina Over Water Tower Project Payment Dispute
A contractor hired for maintenance work on three Salina water towers has sued the City of Salina, alleging the city failed to pay nearly $95,328 in retainage and left the company unable to complete part of the project because the Schilling water tower was not drained.
Phillips Family Enterprises, LLC, doing business as Cunningham Sandblasting & Painting, filed the civil lawsuit May 21 in Saline County District Court. The company says it entered into a January 2025 contract with the city for maintenance, repair and painting work on the Markley, Schilling and Wyatt water towers.
According to the petition, the contract amount was $1,139,750, with the work to be substantially complete within about 210 days after a notice to proceed. Cunningham alleges it performed work on the Wyatt and Markley towers and received certificates of substantial completion for those towers on Aug. 25, 2025, and Oct. 24, 2025.
The dispute centers on the Schilling tower. Cunningham alleges it could not finish interior repair, maintenance, painting and refurbishing work there because the tower had not been drained. The petition says draining the tower was within the city’s control and was a necessary step before the contractor could complete that portion of the job.
In the filing, Cunningham says city staff told the company in October 2025 that additional testing was being done and that the city did not intend to issue a formal stop-work order, even though the contractor’s work could not progress until the tower was emptied. The company alleges no stop-work order was issued and no notice to proceed with the Schilling work had been provided by the time the lawsuit was filed.
Cunningham says it sent a letter Nov. 5, 2025, about project delays and then notified the city Feb. 2, 2026, that the work had been suspended for more than three months. The company alleges it exercised a contractual right to terminate the contract effective Feb. 11, 2026.
The petition says Cunningham submitted a final pay application Feb. 13 seeking $95,327.90 in retained funds. The company alleges payment was due by March 16 and that the city did not respond to or dispute the pay application.
Cunningham brings claims for breach of contract and under the Kansas Fairness in Public Construction Act. The company is seeking more than $75,000 on the contract claim, plus the $95,327.90 retainage amount, interest, attorney fees, costs and other relief the court finds appropriate. The petition also demands a jury trial.
The city had not filed a substantive response among the court documents reviewed for this story. Court records show the city was served June 1, attorney Aaron Martin entered an appearance for the city June 19, and the clerk granted the city a 14-day extension to answer or otherwise plead, with the answer calculated as due on or before July 6.
The case also intersects with a current city agenda item. Salina311 previously reported that commissioners were scheduled to consider a $130,000 change order for the Markley/Schilling/Wyatt water tower maintenance project. City staff said in that agenda summary that work at Markley and Wyatt was completed within the original contract timeframe, the Schilling tower was not completed, and the city and contractor disputed the cause of delays and how to resolve the matter. Under that proposed resolution, Cunningham would return in 2027 to complete the Schilling work for an additional mobilization fee.
The claims in the petition are allegations in a civil lawsuit. The city will have an opportunity to respond through the court process.
Source: Kansas District Court records