Monday, April 14, 2008

Why no fierce bid competition in Oshkosh?

From today's Fond du Lac Reporter:

Fond du Lac Public Works Director Mark Lentz said the city — and ultimately, the taxpayers — will save millions of dollars on construction costs this year as a result of fierce competition for municipal projects.

Bids for public works contracts have come in far below city estimates. The city's radium removal project is one example, Lentz said.

The city expected to pay about $41 million to build new water treatment facilities and upgrade equipment to meet mandates from the Environmental Protection Agency. But bids on all seven of the project's contracts came in below the estimates of city staff. The savings came out to be about $8.9 million, Lentz said.

"Contractors are a little more hungry, so they are being more aggressive," he said. "We are seeing significant reductions that are very favorable to the taxpayer."

So how come just a few miles up the road in Oshkosh, bids for the convention center came in about a million bucks over the projected costs?

It's one of those things that make you go "hmmm . . ."

1 comment:

Justin Mitchell said...

Tony, I appreciated your questions at a recent council meeting in which you questioned why few or no bids were made on a pier project. Sadly, it seems as though staff and some media folks are offended by questions that look into things of this nature.

More than anything else the board serves as a level of accountability of the use of public funds. Please continue asking these questions.