The Lawrence City Commission reversed itself Tuesday and unanimously agreed to withhold a final $1 million payment for the Rock Chalk Park project after new questions emerged regarding receipts and other documents related to the public-private partnership.

One week after the commission approved the processing of the final payment, commissioners on Tuesday said they were no longer comfortable in sending the check to the Kansas University Endowment Association, one of the partners on the sports complex. Instead, commissioners said the payment should be withheld until a “comprehensive audit” is conducted on the project.

“At this point, let it sit until the audit is completed, and let the chips fall where they may,” said City Commissioner Bob Schumm, who previously had urged the city to pay the bill.

In November, the commission on a split vote paid about $11 million of the nearly $12 million worth of infrastructure bills its private partner in the project had submitted for reimbursement. The $1.05 million payment withheld Tuesday represents the final amount unpaid by the city.

The reversal came after the Journal-World asked the Kansas University Endowment Association a series of questions about the existence of certain receipts and other documents related to the project. In response to those questions, which were asked Friday morning, KU Endowment delivered additional documents — mainly canceled checks — to the city Monday. Those documents were posted on the city’s website at midday Tuesday. By Tuesday evening, City Manager David Corliss told commissioners he was no longer comfortable recommending the final payment.

“The response to some questions has raised new questions,” Corliss told commissioners. “I can’t answer all of these questions, and it needs to be part of the audit review before we proceed.”

Among the new issues that are unresolved:

• Multiple documents — signed under oath — by subcontractors on the project say they received payments from Bliss Sports II, a company controlled by Lawrence businessman Thomas Fritzel. The city is contractually obligated to reimburse Bliss Sports II, through the KU Endowment Association, for its hard and soft costs related to building roads, parking lots and other infrastructure at the sports complex. But when KU Endowment turned over canceled checks issued to those subcontractors, many of them showed that Bliss Sports II had not made the payments. Rather, the payments came from other entities controlled by Fritzel.

In many cases, a company called Bliss Sports made the payment. Bliss Sports is a Fritzel entity that was created to build the actual stadiums and other privately-owned facilities at the sports complex. The city is not contractually obligated to reimburse Bliss Sports for any of its costs related to stadiums. Just prior to Tuesday evening’s meeting, Corliss was made aware by the Journal-World of the large number of checks that came from Bliss Sports. Corliss said he didn’t have an understanding of why Fritzel was using his other entities to make some infrastructure-related payments, and Corliss said he was unsure how that complied with a development agreement the city has used to govern the project.

A quick review showed that there were more than $875,000 in payments made from accounts other than Bliss Sports II. Most came from Bliss Sports or DFC Company of Lawrence, a construction company that Fritzel is a member of.

• Canceled checks show that Bliss Sports II is seeking reimbursements for payments Fritzel entities made to Lawrence-based Landplan Engineering dating back to October 2012. The city didn’t have an agreement with Fritzel to begin work at the Rock Chalk Park site until July 2013.

• Canceled checks were not turned over to the city for at least two subcontractors that say they were paid by Bliss Sports II. An official with Alpha Omega Geotech has signed a document saying it has been paid a little more than $84,000 for inspection services. But KU Endowment officials, requesting Bliss Sports II documents on behalf of the city, said they were unsuccessful in obtaining canceled checks documenting those payments. Monte Soukup, a senior vice president for KU Endowment, has acknowledged to the city that Alpha Omega Geotech was working for both Bliss Sports II and Bliss Sports. He also has acknowledged that Alpha Omega billed the work together and adjustments had to be made after the fact to allocate how much of the inspection services should be reimbursed by the city. A letter from Alpha Omega said it sent bills to Bliss Sports for its services. Copies of those bills were not provided to the city.

KU Endowment also was unsuccessful in obtaining canceled checks for payments made to Bliss Sports II’s legal firm of Polsinelli. The Kansas City-based law firm signed documents saying it had been paid by Bliss Sports II a total of a little more than $212,000, but canceled checks to verify those payments were not made available.

City commissioners said the latest round of documents left them with too many questions.

“It is unfortunate that we didn’t get these until yesterday,” said City Commissioner Jeremy Farmer. “I don’t know why. This is new information.”

Commissioners reconfirmed Tuesday that they plan to hire an independent auditor to review the entire project. They said they would expect the auditor to answer questions related to the discrepancies in the most recent documents.

Commissioners, though, did not finalize a contract with the recommended auditing firm, Tennessee-based McDonald & Associates. Instead, commissioners said they wanted changes in wording to the proposed contract with the firm. The firm had said because of the aggressive timeline asked for by the city, the firm could not guarantee it would be able to follow all the accepted standards of a full audit.

City Commissioner Terry Riordan said he couldn’t approve the contract without assurances it would be a full-blown audit rather than a mere “review” of the project.

“I can’t agree to doing this is in a way that doesn’t meet all the standards,” explained Riordan, who said the public would view such a report as a “sloppy job.”

Commissioners were told increasing the standards likely would raise the cost of the audit, which previously had been estimated to be $25,000 plus expenses. Commissioners also were told the auditing firm likely would need additional time to complete the more comprehensive project. Originally, commissioners wanted a report by Feb. 17.

Commissioners unanimously agreed Tuesday to consider an increased cost and longer time frame for the audit. They’ll receive a report back on the new cost and timeline next week.