Staying in the game

Public works directors speak
out on handling municipal contracts

By Sean Ryan
Daily Reporter Staff

Web posted: July 24, 2001

Every city in the state has a different capital works budget with varying priorities.

Some municipalities might have a small, $2 million construction and capital improvements budget while others might spend $2 million in their sleep.

Whatever the city and however big or small the budget, there is money available and public works officials looking for a qualified firm. But it's up to the contractors to find the right fit.

The Daily Reporter spoke with two public works directors -- David Patek from Oshkosh and Gary Yurgis from Waterloo -- to get an insider's view on handling public works contracts.

The Oshkosh perspective

Patek said the city of Oshkosh's 2001 capital improvements budget is $16.9 million, most of which will go toward sewer and water projects. The city spent $2.5 million last year to upgrade its water treatment plant and is currently handling design work on a new $8.4 million intake transmission main for the plant. The city bid 25 projects in 2000.

What is your procedure to bid out a project from beginning to end?

"We have a capital improvement program that is budgeted one year at a time, but the program takes into account the upcoming five years. So, for example, we are doing the preliminary design and survey of our 2002 projects. We'll go into the fall, and then our lists would be finalized as part of the budget process. Then we go through the winter months doing the design. We try to complete them by spring, and then we bid and award those bids and go through the summer and fall.

"State law requires bid announcement ads in a local newspaper. What typically happens is there are trade organizations that ask for plans and display plans, and we cooperate with them."

Do you hire an independent engineering or architectural firm to organize bids?

"It depends on the project. We have in-house staff that works on a project from planning and design to construction. Depending on the complexity of the process, we will bring in an engineering firm to conduct that. It really depends on the complexity. Our in-house staff deals mostly with local street reconstruction projects and local utilities. If you get into major projects with water utilities such as transmission mains or water tower design, or if we do major reconstruction on the sanitary sewer system, we would hire an engineering firm to do that."

Is there anything that makes the bidding system more complicated than the basic "lowest qualified bidder wins" system?

"Now that's state law. State law requires awards to the lowest responsible bidder."

How do you determine if contractors are qualified to work certain jobs?

"We have a prequalification form, and every January we send that out to contractors who were prequalified the year before. Once you're prequalified, you are prequalified for the season. It requires information on the company itself as far as the company history. It requires information of experience on previous projects. It requires information on their equipment that's available, and it requires information on finances and bonding."

What do you suggest contractors do to stay on top of upcoming projects?

"The contractors around here would make contacts with the engineering staff to find out the status of a project. That's the easiest way to find out what's going on. They just try to touch bases with the engineering staff in the off season to try and see what projects are coming up to the plate. We have our list of streets that we're working on, and we have contractors who keep tabs on that."

How can contractors get their foot in the door with the city beyond just placing bids?

"We get our experience with contractors by actually working with them. We get to know about contractors because they fill out the prequalification forms that we get so we know what their previous experience has been.

"For some reason there are bidders that are more comfortable working in this area, so we tend to award more bids to them for whatever reason. I suppose it could be considered hard if there are certain local contractors that are concerned with keeping their business in the city. I can't give any recommendation beyond just giving the low bid."

The Waterloo point of view

David Patek Public Works Director Oshkosh

Yurgis said the city of Waterloo bid three projects totaling $600,000 in 2000. He said Waterloo primarily bids street repair projects and replaces one road each year for about $250,000. He said the city's biggest recent project was a $2 million City Hall and Police Department completed last year.

What is your procedure to bid out a project from beginning to end?

"Starting back 10 years ago when we wanted to get out a street program, myself and one of the city engineers did a street-by-street analysis and rated them good to bad. Then we just started out at picking one to work on. Then it's hard to say because generally the engineering firm takes over."

Do you hire an independent engineering or architectural firm to organize bids?

"They take care of everything as far as sending out the bid specs. They have a pretty good list of about 10 or 12 contractors in the surrounding area. They put it all together and send it out to our list of contractors in the area, and then the cheapest bid usually gets it. (Madison-based engineering firm) Schreiber and Anderson does everything for the city."

Is there anything that makes the bidding system more complicated than the basic "lowest qualified bidder wins" system?

"That's pretty much the way the city's been doing it. Mostly all the contractors that work here in town, usually anybody that does any bidding here in town, the city usually knows them pretty well. Usually they do all the work here in town, they have a good reputation, and usually they have the low bids because of their location."

How do you determine if contractors are qualified to work certain projects?

"Of course there's word-of-mouth in terms of how good they are. But just as long as they can get insurance and they can get bonded, and as long as they can fill the criteria for the bonds they can do the work."

What do you suggest contractors do to stay on top of upcoming jobs?

"I do have a couple of local contractors that stop in periodically. Most of them know that we do a yearly street project, and we are doing a yearly sidewalk project now. Most of them will stop in during the spring and just see what we're working on."

How can contractors get their foot in the door with the city beyond just placing bids?

"I think the door is open to anybody as long as they come in. If you are the lowest bidder on the job you get the foot in the door. That's about it. They're just going to have to come in and be competitive with other contractors.

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