Through a public records request, I have the bids made by Gulf Equipment and Roads Inc on the Maplewood drainage project. As you would expect, the two companies have differences on several items – pluses and minuses – that result in Gulf being $22,982.26 less than Roads, Inc. Given a chance, either company could probably trim prices and get the costs for those items closer.
For example, Road can say that its unit price for the Inlets Type D ($11,500) should have been $1,150 and thereby lower their bid by $93,150—but Gulf could come back and say its bid for Pond Excavation ($8.40/unit and higher than any other bid) and 12″ Side Bank Filters ($80/unit and the other bids ranged from $8-190) were mistakes and thereby lower their bid by $103,373. The combinations are nearly endless
The biggest difference in the two bids – and the item that could show a $100K savings) is in Remove and Replace Unsuitable Material ($165,000). Gulf bid $3.40 unit price (total $85,000.00); Roads bid $10.00 unit price (total $250,000.00). The $10 unit price is the same unit price that Roads used on a prior bid for Ogden-Hartung Area Drainage Improvements (read – check page 3).
The Ogden-Hartung project was awarded to Gulf Equipment (Roads was the third lowest bidder) on 12/10/09. Roads didn’t try to get the bids thrown out and the commissioners didn’t consider re-biding it.
Roads bid for the unsuitable material – at $10 unit price – was consistent with its other bids. Therefore, a reasonable person would conclude that Roads made no error on this item, which is $165,000 more than Gulf.
As county staff told Roads and Commissioners White, Robertson and Robinson concluded after further review, there was no basis to protest the award to Gulf Equipment.
Here is the comparison of the two proposals – let me know if you see something different: Maplewood