Members of the Ceres City Council last week rejected a proposal to allow the city manager to execute task orders for on-call engineering contracts between $25,000 and $250,000 without requiring additional council approval.
The move was intended to eliminate unnecessary delays to an approved project.
An on-call contract is an agreement between the city and a consultant for specialized engineering services which the city needs on an as-needed, project-by-project basis rather than for a specific, predefined project. These contracts are competitively bid, allowing cities to quickly access services when a need arises without the lengthy process of a new, singular project bid, and include pre-negotiated rates for specific tasks and a defined term and total budget.
City Engineer Mike Beltran said the council still maintains oversight since they approve all capital improvement projects in the first place.
According to Beltran, on-call contracts are designed to expedite the contracting process and that requiring separate council approval for each task order over $25,000 is contrary to this purpose, as most services provided with on-call contracts are more than $25,000.
The city of Ceres maintains on-call contracts with 10 professional consulting firms providing services such as traffic engineering, geotechnical testing and engineering, general civil engineering and surveying services.
He gave a recent example in which a task order for $31,000 for geotechnical testing for ongoing projects had to be approved by the council with delays since the council meets only twice a month.
“Now, if that $31,000 would have put the project over budget, that would not be allowed, we would not be able to execute that contract,” explained Beltran.
He clarified that these contracts only deal with the city’s capital improvement projects approved by the council.
“I don’t have a problem with council oversight by any means,” said Beltran. “I think that when it comes to on-call contracts, we also need to be efficient. And when we look at, for instance, testing services for a project, we can’t get those quotes until we generally have a construction schedule from our contractors and contractors are looking to begin, which are already approved by council.”
Concerns about reduced communication
Councilwoman Rosalinda Vierra said she was concerned that allowing the council to be bypassed would cause the council to not be informed of what CIP projects are being worked on.
“It sounds like you’re just trying to bypass our ability to get that information and relay that information to the public as well,” said Vierra. “And I think that’s my biggest concern is just bypassing public information on where we’re spending and how we’re spending our money, especially in tight fiscal times.”
Vice Mayor Daniel Martinez said while he trusts the judgment of City Manager Doug Dunford, “he and I won’t be here forever and so I would like to keep the oversight in the hands of future councils and future mayors and not change how things are operating now.” He also didn’t feel the change would improve the already lacking communication in the city.
Councilwoman Cerina Otero agreed. “We struggle a lot in our city with communication and I’m really concerned that if we approve this, the council will not be made aware of various funding that’s moved forward with the authorization of the city manager. That amount is extremely high for the budget struggles that we are currently having so I wouldn’t be able to support this type of change either.”
Even though Mayor Javier Lopez praised the performance of Dunford and telling Beltran “I do trust that you’re trying to do the right thing on this one,” he sided with the council.
