Title
Transportation Department recommending Chairman be authorized to sign Agreement 06-1326 with CALTROP Corporation, Agreement 06-1327 with PB Americas, Inc., Agreement 06-1328 with PSOMAS, and Agreement 06-1329 with Vali Cooper & Associates, Inc. in the amount of $500,000 each for the term of April 10, 2007 through April 9, 2009 except PSOMAS, which will expire March 31, 2009, to provide construction engineering and construction support services, and adopt recommended findings for same. (Cont'd. 4/10/07, Item 23)
FUNDING: The funding source will vary dependent upon which capital project is supported by these Agreements. In general, the Capital Improvement Program is funded with the 2004 General Plan Traffic Impact Mitigation fee program, grants and developer funding.
Body
BUDGET SUMMARY: |
|
|
Total Estimated Cost |
|
$2,000,000 |
|
|
|
Funding |
|
|
Budgeted |
$850,000 |
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New Funding |
$ |
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Savings |
$ |
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Other |
$1,150,000 |
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Total Funding Available |
$2,000,000 |
|
Change To Net County Cost |
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$0.00 |
* to be included in future year budgets
Fiscal Impact/Change to Net County Cost:
The Department included $850,000 in its Fiscal Year (FY) 2006/2007 budget for these Agreements and anticipates budgeting the remaining amount in FY 2007/2008 and FY 2008/2009. The Department does not anticipate expending all of the monies on each of the four construction engineering and construction support contracts ($500,000 on each contract), but needs to maintain flexibility in the event one consultant contract is utilized to a greater extent than the others. There is no cost to the County General Fund.
Recent Modifications to this Board item:
Based on direction resulting from ongoing discussions at meetings of the Board of Supervisors (Board) and County executive management, the Department of Transportation (Department) has revised its strategy for obtaining construction support services to assist in implementation of the Department's Capital Improvement Program (CIP). This revised strategy will combine the use of the subject Agreements as well as project specific Agreements that will be submitted as future agenda items for the Board's consideration.
Execution of this revised strategy has allowed the Department to reduce the value of each of the subject Agreements from $2,000,000 to $500,000. Additionally, the termination date of the subject Agreement for PSOMAS has been slightly modified to correspond with PSOMAS' fiscal year calendar.
The subject Agreements will be utilized for staff augmentation, when unanticipated events occur, or when a project specific agreement is not appropriate. Some examples of these types of situations are as follows:
· when the Department does not have enough personnel to fully staff a project
· when a Department employee has to take an extended leave and the Department does not have staff available to cover the work
· when the Department needs additional short term personnel to cover night work and/or peak work load times, or emergency work
Project specific agreements will be brought to the Board for execution when a project will be fully or predominately staffed by consultants. For example, construction support services for Phase 1A of the U.S. 50 - Missouri Flat Interchange will be facilitated with a project specific agreement.
Background:
On March 8, 2006, the Department sent Requests for Qualifications (RFQ) to 20 consulting firms that provide construction engineering and construction support services. Thirteen firms responded, and the consultant selection committee (committee), consisting of Department staff, reviewed the firms' statements of qualifications for criteria such as experience, depth, and expertise. CALTROP Corporation, PB Americas, Inc., PSOMAS, and Vali Cooper & Associates, Inc. (Consultants), were selected as the four firms best able to provide the expertise needed to administer and inspect County construction projects. Since the review of the original statements of qualifications was performed in April 2006, which was prior to the adoption of County Procurement Policy C-17, the Department did not utilize a committee member from outside the Department. Pursuant to the Chief Administrative Office's recommendation to ask a non-department representative to review the work of the Department committee, the Department recently requested that Caltrans review the work of the committee. Luis Rivas, Construction Area Resident Engineer for Caltrans, reviewed the Department's RFQ, the consultants' statements of qualifications and the Department's evaluation process, and concurred with the Department's selections.
Reason for Recommendation:
Under these Agreements, the Consultants will perform various construction engineering and construction support services on the West Slope over the next two years. Tasks may include but are not limited to the following: construction inspection, administration, and engineering services; analysis of claims, schedules, and Plans, Specifications, & Estimate (PS&E) packages; welding inspection and testing; construction staking; storm water pollution prevention services; and, public relations and office administration services.
Some of the services to be performed under these Agreements require expertise that County staff does not have. These services include certified welding inspection and providing destructive and non-destructive laboratory testing on welds performed on the Department's CIP projects, as well as performing analyses of surface and ground water samples related to storm water runoff from construction sites.
The Department needs to enter into these Agreements in order to be positioned to properly administer the numerous construction projects currently slated for the 2007 and 2008 construction seasons. Some of the projects include Pleasant Valley Road Two Way Left Turn Lane; Motherlode Two Way Left Turn Lane; Latrobe Road, White Rock to U.S. 50; Latrobe Road, Suncast to Golden Foothill South; Durock Road; U.S. 50, Silva Valley Parkway Interchange, Phase 1 and 2; Tennessee Creek Bridge Replacement; Country Club and Palmer at Cameron Park Drive; Cameron Park Drive and Oxford; Cameron Park Drive and La Canada; and, El Dorado Hills Boulevard Overlay.
Over the past several months, the Department has been unable to fill key vacancies in its West Slope Construction (WSC) Unit. As of January 23, 2007, the WSC Unit had the following vacant allocations:
· five Senior Civil Engineers
· two Chief Engineering Technicians
· one Principal Engineering Technician
· three Seasonal Senior Engineering Technicians
· one Administrative Technician
The Department has interviewed several applicants for the vacant engineering positions, most often without yielding any candidates with the construction experience that is commensurate with our needs. The Department is in the process of recruiting for the vacant technician positions, but it is not anticipated that all of the vacancies will be filled prior to the onset of the 2007 construction season. In addition, if any of the technician vacancies are filled by current WSC Unit personnel, then a need will arise for the positions left open by their promotions. If the Department is successful hiring permanent staff, use of consultant personnel via the subject Agreements will decrease.
It is important to note that even if the Department were successful in filling all of the positions listed above, due to the high volume of construction projects slated for the 2007 and 2008 construction seasons, the seasonal nature of the work, and peaks in construction activity, there would still be a need for some level of resource augmentation in the form of construction engineering and construction support services contracts. The Department will administer these Agreements to ensure the coordination of work efforts and the prevention of duplicative efforts between the Consultants and Department staff.
Flexibility is another factor that is crucial to the Department fulfilling its construction obligations. There is an unprecedented volume of transportation construction projects slated for delivery to construction in 2007 and 2008 all over northern California. This volume will be augmented by voter passage of bond measures in November 2006 that will provide hundreds of millions of additional dollars into transportation construction. These factors will certainly make a tight construction inspection and administration labor market even tighter. Therefore, the Department is proposing to enter into four identical construction engineering and construction support contracts, so that if one Consultant's forces are tied up with work elsewhere, another Consultant can be utilized to meet the Department's needs.
The Department typically administers and inspects $5,000,000 to $10,000,000 worth of construction projects per season. Over the next two construction seasons, the Department plans to execute construction contracts worth approximately $60,000,000. These proposed Agreements will assist our Department in meeting the immediate challenges presented by a limited staff facing a record amount of work over the next two construction seasons.
The Department recommends the Board make findings pursuant to Article II, Section 210 b (6) of the El Dorado County Charter that there are specialty skills required for the work performed under these Agreements that are not expressly identified in County classifications.
The El Dorado County Employees Association, Local #1, has been informed of these proposed Agreements.
Action to be taken following Board approval:
1) The Chairman will sign the two originals of each of the four Agreements.
2) The Board Clerk will forward one original of each fully-executed Agreement to the Department for further processing.
Contact:
Richard W. Shepard, P.E.
Director of Transportation
Concurrences: Approved by County Counsel and Risk Management