4th Avenue Project Bid Over Budget
Prince George, B.C. – The plan to convert 4th Avenue to a two way street has doubled in cost from the budgeted $400 thousand to more than $900 thousand.
When asked why there was such a significant difference, Superintendent of Operations, Bill Gaal said "We don't feel our cost estimates were that far off." he says the cost difference was brought on by "market forces."
Councilor Lyn Hall was not satisfied with that answer, questioning why the City's estimate is so far off the reality of the bid received. In this case, the estimate was $400 thousand, the bid came back at $934 thousand.
Part of the answer could be the time lag between the approval of a project and the tender being issued. In this case, there was nearly a year that had passed.
"I do think we need to look at our capital plan processes ", says City Manager Beth James who agreed the price of the project, was more than twice the estimate. James says bids have been coming in 30-50% higher over last year. "We are going to have to put in some kind of premium in the capital plan." She noted there was only one bid submitted for this project, so had there been more bids, the results might have been different.
James could have approved this project without bringing it back to Council, but she didn't want to do that.
The difference ( outlined below) will be picked up by using the $108 thousand Green City Award and $25 thousand from operational street lighting improvement.
|
Expenses: Contract Work and Materials |
$ 934,000 |
|
Funding: City, MOTI and WIDC hydro |
$ 801,000 |
|
Difference |
$ 133,000 |
Comments
Is anyone shocked? Which one of the councilors is the contractor related to?
Wow that’s some good budgeting.
How does the city accept a bid that turns out to be 50% more expensive. Isn’t there controls in place to protect the city?
Shouldn’t it be just rebid?
Wouldn’t be a lot easier to make it two lanes wide. Keep it going the same one-way, no need to change traffic lights. No need to retrain people who know it as one-way to adjust to two-way. You can’t use three lanes as it is now, lines have not been painted for two years. Two lanes wide would allow cars that are parked to open their doors, allow for bicycles. The parking on Third Avenue is terrible now as people turn across the lanes to park in the opposite side, people parked neatly in spaces provided when everyone went one direction. It could easily be converted to two lanes wide as of Edmonton Street and that would cure the congestion by the new Police station. Painting in a new centerline, new edge markings, some left and right turn lanes would be a lot less than $934,000 dollars.
133.50% over budget????
The project stops right there until you get a reasonable bid.
This is the difference between want to do and have to do. On a nice to have, you don’t let the project costs run 133.5% over the approved budget. You wait until you can get a more appropriate bid, even if that takes a year or two.
You also don’t build a premium into the capital plan. You start rationalizing your capital projects. The ones that have to be done get done and the ones that are questionable get shelved. That little trick is called MANAGEMENT. MORONS!
Does this added potential cost mean I have to pay more for my “rainwater run off tax” which doesn’t go into my storm sewer but into my enhanced and upgraded ditch? Sure hope not.
Would be interesting to know who was the winning bid?
Shari will be happy to get 4th avenue done to her specs…
got to keep her private business on specialty row happy now.
Hey council, I’ve got an idea to save $400K (or $900K). Cancel this needless project altogether.
“James could have approved this project without bringing it back to Council, but she didn’t want to do that.”
So the City Manager can approve expenses such as this without consulting council? Costs like these should be mandatory for council to approve or disapprove. Maybe one reason our taxes are so high because of past approvals by management without council being aware??
What a disaster this small city is.Incompetent City Hall through and through.This project should be put on hold and put out to tender again or explore the suggestion of bultoco89 or others that obviously have better ideas than what we are facing right now. If Beth James has that much power, that needs to be changed as well. For goodness sakes, how crazy this is!
What a bunch of crap. Plain and simple.
Beth James needs to head out of town with scary Sherrie and not return.
why fix what’s not broke – leave 4th the way it is – stop wasting tax payer money. If city council is determined to waste taxpayer money then put 3rd back to a one-way. The way 3rd is now is nothing more then a then a parkers nightmare. You have people down there pulling u-turns all the time just to grab a parking space on the opposite side of the street.
Maybe PG should go forward instead of backward. The streets downtown were all two-way at one time. Changed to one-ways, and now back to two-way. What a waste of time and money!!
City hall find something better to do then messing with the streets. Better yet – repave them.
Best thing about accountants… Nothing.. They are so out to lunch they need to reforecast their budgets very quarter.
It’s math..that’s it..it’s not rocket surgery.. Why are they so bad at it ? And they all are..it’s embarrassing.
don’t ya just love non-union labour
So they are 133% off on their estimate of the civic works contract. Home owners in Hart Highlands I am sure are hoping the city didn’t use the same estimator to come up with the $2.5 million dollar sewer upgrade… fine print says all cost over runs will be covered by the homeowners 100%… and the same Superintendent of Operations, Bill Gaal running the sewer show as fill in work for city crews… my guess is the $2.5 million for the Wallace Crescent sewer line will come in over $3.5 million when all is said and done.
What is the reason for changing fourth avenue again?
oh you negative nancy’s. So its over budget. its simple, either re-bid, or find the money. Te street badly needs updating. I don’t really care if it goes to two way, but the steet, sidewalks, and lack of trees needs to be addressed. Might as well kill two birds with one stone.
Posted by: phje on June 19 2014 6:40 AM
oh you negative nancy’s. So its over budget. its simple, either re-bid, or find the money. Te street badly needs updating. I don’t really care if it goes to two way, but the steet, sidewalks, and lack of trees needs to be addressed. Might as well kill two birds with one stone.
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I think it would be pointless to re tender it; the bids will not get any lower. And do we really want to go lowest bid? You get what you pay for.
4th ave’s only good restaurant pulled the plug months ago. Why spend any money on this lame project?
phje: “oh you negative nancy’s. So its over budget. its simple, either re-bid, or find the money.”
My pockets are turned inside out. How much money do you have on you?
Just remember all this at election time when politicians line up with their usual promises to do better the next time around, if only re-elected! Incredibly enough they usually even tout their past achievements and how they worked so very hard (for peanuts!) to keep all the tax increases to the barest minimum (!) and how terribly worse it could have been if it hadn’t been for their astute wisdom!
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