Detailed Review of “Design Build” Costs May Force Changes
Greenville County Councilman Willis Meadows is convinced that the
county is paying too much for road paving and called on the county to
do the work in-house rather than paying a single contractor to manage
the paving program for the county.
Using the county’s own statistics, Meadows said Greenville County could have saved more than $700,000 on road paving administrative costs during 2006-2007 by administering the road program in-house.
In a letter to Greenville County Council Chairman Butch Kirven, written in August 2007, the county administrator said that should the “Sealed Proposal/ Turnkey Method” of road paving contracts not be used, the county would need to hire or contract six new employees as well as a contract for design, testing and field inspection. The total cost to provide those services in-house for 2007-2008 would be $1,101,000 according to the letter.
Meadows calculated the total cost of fees for design and management for the 2006-2007 paving program to be $1,883,000. The result led Meadows to the conclusion that more than $700,000 could be saved annually by performing the management services in-house by hiring additional employees.
If the costs provided by the Greenville County Administration to Meadows are correct and his computations are accurate, the basis for the current design- build plan is undermined.
The current design-build plan is allowed by both the Greenville County Procurement Code and the State Procurement Code, provided two qualifications are met.
The method must get the work done quicker than any other method, and it must be done cheaper than any other method.
The preliminary analysis by Willis indicates that the cost of the current plan is more rather than less, leading to a conclusion that the basis for selecting the design-build method may be faulty.
In addition to the management costs under the current plan that has been in use by Greenville County for the past decade, Meadows said the county is paying more for asphalt than others receiving services from the same contractor.
Meadows recommended that the Council direct the county administration to proceed to administer the paving program in-house.
Council Chairman Butch Kirven declined to allow a vote on the proposal and chose instead to review the matter at a later date before it is brought back before Council for consideration.
Meadows assured his colleagues that his interest in county paving contracts was not prompted by any comments by Councilman Tony Trout, who has been “sniping” at the county road program without producing substantive support for his allegations or any action by a Grand Jury that has solicited testimony from Trout.
Edward Sloan, a former paving contractor and citizen of Greenville County, has been a persistent critic of the paving program primarily because the method used by the county has recently produced only proposals from one contractor, Ashmore Brothers, Inc.
Should a decision be made to hire additional people to administer the county road program and utilize the Competitive Sealed Bid Method of procurement, several months of lead time would be required to hire and train employees for the new tasks.
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