The San Benito County Board of Supervisors accepted bids July 18 for the jail expansion project and, after determining the lowest qualified bidder, awarded the construction contract and clarified the county funding source for the $25 million project.
In 2007, the county was awarded $15.053 million in state financing for the construction of an addition to the county jail on Flynn Road to assist with overcrowding and lack of programming space. Then, in 2011, the county was re-awarded the funding under more favorable terms. Since then, work has progressed on the design of the project, but due to significant price escalation within the construction industry, and to a greater degree within the detention segment, what was once estimated to be a $13 million project became a $17 million project. An additional $5 million of state funds were subsequently approved by the local Community Corrections Partners (CCP) to make up the difference. The project then proceeded to the bid phase. After a contractor pre-qualification process, the project was advertised on May 16, and bids were received on June 20.
Of the eight pre-qualified construction firms, five submitted bids. The lowest bidder realized, though, that a mistake had been made in the tabulation of its bid and withdrew. The next lowest bidder was identified as Sletten Construction Company. Its bid of $20,139,852 exceeded the project estimate by nearly $3 million, but was in line with several other bids, indicating that it is a fair price. Hal Hays objected to Sletten’s bid and filed a protest. The protest was pulled during the July 18 meeting and the contract was awarded to Sletten.
Construction should start in late August, after the state has held several required meetings to formally award their portion of the funding. The total project cost under the lowest bid is $25,016,394. Of that, the state is funding $20,053,000 and the county will cover the additional amount of nearly $5 million.
In approving the resolution, the interim Resource Management Agency director was authorized to issue change orders to the construction contract in amounts not to exceed $210,000. Supervisor Jaime De La Cruz asked Barbara Thompson, the county’s assistant counsel, that if the contractor exceeds that amount would it have to come back to the board for approval. Thompson said it would. De La Cruz wondered if that might circumvent the process that determine the lowest bidder.
“We’d have to look at change orders very closely,” she said. “I believe that in the state law there may be limits on the amount of change orders that a project can do.”
Adam Goldstone added that the public contract code allows the board to grant a certain amount of change orders in order to keep small portions of the project moving forward.
“Anything exceed $210,000 would have to come to the board,” he said.
Goldstone said it’s his and the construction manager’s jobs to make sure requests were valid, involving unforeseen issues and not those that should have been anticipated. Thompson added that unexpected increases in the cost of materials is an understood risk of doing business.
Supervisor Jerry Muenzer commented that he had a hard time awarding a $20 million contract to someone who did not fill out the bid properly.
“If we’re $10 million into this project and all of a sudden they come back and say ‘we need another $5 million,’ at that point we’re going to have to award it,” he said.
Goldstone tried to reassure him by stating the company’s bid was aligned with the others and he is confident that the bid is accurate.
“One of the reasons the bid protest was rescinded was because the code does allow for an error like that to be corrected by replacing the sub-contractor, and that was done in this case,” he said. “I don’t think that one thing (filling out the bid incorrectly) is indicative of future performance.”
Goldstone told the board that no matter what the request may be, from underestimating the amount of wiring needed to weather issues, each would be vetted to determine if it is legitimate.
“If it’s something they failed to account for, that’s their problem. If it’s something unforeseen like weather or natural disaster, we’ll consider those,” he said.
“We’re not bound to grant it, but we’re bound to consider it, is that what you’re saying?” Muenzer asked.
Goldstone reiterated that if the contractor cannot work because of conditions at the site because of weather or disaster those would be taken into consideration.