Travis County Commissioners Court
April 28, 2009,
Item
13
13.approve modification no.
6 to contract no.
08t00073rg, a-tex pest management, for pest control services.
>> question?
>> yes, judge, on item no.
13, the question was that how -- how do we go from a bid of $20 up to $175 for the service and -- and did this need to maybe go out for bid with other pest control providers.
>> this contract was awarded about a year ago in March of 2008.
we just entered into our first option year.
when it was awarded we had three other bidders.
this bidder was considerably lower than the three others to begin with.
>> all right.
>> he has provided documentation to the sheriff's office, which they agreed with, that -- that he misunderstood the intent of that particular part.
this is for the downtown jail building.
he misunderstood the intent that they wanted all cells treated every month.
he -- his increase, his proposed increase puts him in line with the semi in line with the bidder -- awarded contractor's previous term who knew the building, so knew what was required.
he's in line with that contractor now.
even with this increase of about 2100 per year, he's still below the other -- the other bids a year ago.
>> when I saw that, I know $20, even coming to your office, I saw my goodness gracious, from $20 to $175.
>> quite a leap, all right.
>> just jumped out at me like a ton of bricks.
so I know you can't get it at your house --
>> exactly right.
>> charging more than $20 to knock on your door.
>> that's right.
>> that's about 300 cells at the downtown jail, takes them three hours to do it.
normal rate for me if he come to my house would be 150 an hour, which would be 450, instead of 175, so the sheriff's office thought this was fair.
>> I just wanted to get clarification.
i move approval.
still a motion and a second.
>> no.
>> I'm sorry.
>> Commissioner.
>> that's kind of -- kind of makes some questions for me as well in the bidding process because if we're going to look at incrementally making modifications that may end up putting the first, low bidder over the second bidder, I'm curious since I'm new to the court, when you -- when you look at the bidding process, do you compare line items like this between the different bidders, if there had been comparison to the previous one, this might have been caught in the bidding process.
i'm curious about the process here.
>> depends on how the method of award is written.
if it says we're going to reward by line item.
yes, we campaign line item.
this I'm assuming said probably either by group or by total.
all or none.
he was about $3,000 lower than the next low bids a year ago.
when you compare our low bid to the previous contractor of about 29,000 difference.
we are always going for the low bid, he manages the contract, we might get him up here if you have more questions, of course we compare
>> [indiscernible]
>>
>> [indiscernible]
>> [laughter]
>> yes, he walked in.
>> of course we compare what we think is reasonable.
if one bid comes in way low, then we would probably start asking questions to make sure they really know what they were bidding.
>> I just want to be sure -- I have no history, so I have no relational understanding of that.
>> what would happen if the contractor then came in and said I misunderstood the bid, I can only do it for x, x was higher than the previous.
>> we would give him a chance to withdraw his bid.
he can't change it after it's opened.
but we would give them a chance to withdraw it.
>> but in this case, in this case, taking it as a hypothetical.
if the contract isn't it letted and they ask for a modification a year later that would put him -- because he said that he misunderstood it.
>> that has come back.
they said I have misunderstood it, I can't do it for that price, we have allowed them to do it for just one line item.
we're not in the business of putting other people out of business.
we're trying to be very fair.
>> good point.
>> thank you.
>> there was a motion and a second.
any more discussion?
all in favor?
that passes by unanimous vote.
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, April 28, 2009 6:10 PM