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HomeMy WebLinkAbout01/18/2011, C4 - REQUEST FOR QUALIFICATIONS FOR SOILS AND MATERIALS TESTING SERVICES FOR VARIOUS PROJECTS OVER THE N counathm Jan. 18,2011 ac Enda RepoRt CITY OF SA.N LUIS OBISPO FROM: Jay D. Walter, Director of Public Works _70W Prepared By: Michael J. McGuire, Engineer III SUBJECT: REQUEST FOR QUALIFICATIONS FOR SOILS AND MATERIALS TESTING SERVICES FOR VARIOUS PROJECTS OVER THE NEXT TWO YEARS; SPECIFICATION NO. 50410.7227.2011 RECOMMENDATIONS 1. Approve the Request for Qualifications for Soils and Materials Testing Services, Specification No. 50410.7227.2011 and authorize staff to solicit proposals. 2. Authorize the City Manager to execute agreements with the selected consulting firms. 3. Authorize the Finance Director to execute and amend Purchase Orders for individual projects to consultants under agreement, in an amount not to exceed the authorized project budget.. DISCUSSION Staff recommends generating a list of qualified consultants and executing agreements with several firms to perform soils and materials testing related services for Council approved and budgeted Capital Improvement Plan (CIP) projects on an "as needed"basis through a Request for Qualifications (RFQ) process. This approach of generating "on-call" agreements has been successfully used for various consultant services over the last twelve years greatly reducing staff time in hiring consultants by eliminating the repetitive process of preparing Request for Proposals (RFP), advertising, and soliciting firms for each project. Staff uses consultants for two main purposes. The first is to complete work for which there is no internal expertise, or proper facilities and equipment to conduct the work. The second is to allow project work to continue or be expedited when staff is unavailable due to other project workload. The current CIP workload has a number of projects that may require a variety of soils and materials testing services over the next two fiscal years. Currently, City staff does not have the laboratory facilities and equipment to conduct geotechnical and materials testing. Hiring consultants with the necessary facilities and expertise will ensure that the City's CIP projects receive the thorough materials testing and analysis that the Council and the public expect. Currently, the City has a two-year contract for on-call services with four soils and materials testing firms, which is set to expire in May, 2011. Request for Qualifications The City's Financial Management Manual allows consultants to be hired without any special requirements for services totaling less than $7,500. Each department is responsible to prepare vouchers, or a purchase order, for payment to the consultant. Between $7,500 and $25,000, a department solicits proposals in an informal manner, and a Purchase Order is authorized by the C44 \1 Request for Qualifications—Soils and Materials Testing Services Page 2 City Manager. For any consultant services over $25,000, a formal Council approved RFQ/RFP is required. When consultants are hired, departments collect insurance and establish general conditions for the agreement. This can be a time consuming endeavor in a program such as Engineering, where these types of expenditures are common. Over the last twelve years, the Public Works Department has generated lists of prequalified consultants to provide services on an on-call basis for various areas of specialized work such as surveying, materials testing, construction management, right-of-way acquisition services, hazardous materials testing/monitoring, and environmental services. This process has proven to be less time-consuming, less expensive and less redundant for both the City and the consultants. The proposed RFQ solicits information packets from interested geotechnical and materials testing consultants stating their qualifications. After evaluating the submittal packages received, staff will select the top one to three consultants based on their demonstrated ability to provide the needed services in a timely manner. Once the selected consultant(s) have entered into an agreement with the City, staff will use their services for individual projects as needed without going through the full Request for Proposals process. Typical work performed by the soils and materials testing consultant will include sampling and testing of concrete, asphalt, soils, compaction testing, testing soils for various types of contamination that could include petroleum products, hydrocarbons and lead, reinforcing steel, welding, paints, coatings, installation of driven or drilled piles, test borings, various fabrics and other materials used in construction. The purpose of establishing an on-call provider list through the RFQ process for consultant services is to shorten the purchasing process without compromising its purpose. If the City has an agreement with a group of consultants for a variety of specialties, then the required insurance is on file with the City and an agreement has been executed outlining the conditions under which the consultant must work, such as indemnification, non-discrimination and conditions for termination. When a need for services is identified, staff needs only to review the list and specialties of the consultants, find a match to the project requirements and contact the firms to determine if they have staff available for the work and what the cost and time frame for completion will be. Once an acceptable cost proposal is negotiated with the consultant, a purchase order is approved, and work can begin. The RFQ process and the execution of an advance agreement allows staff to obtain needed services for previously approved and budgeted CIP projects in a greatly reduced time frame, basically under the guidelines for services less than $7,500, while keeping the value and purpose of the more stringent measures of the City's purchasing policy. Performing this process every two years allows new and interested companies to have an opportunity to perform work for the City. Having multiple firms on-call for the same type of work, allows staff to obtain services at a reasonable cost through competition. FISCAL IMPACT The RFQ process itself, does not have any fiscal impacts. Payment for the consultant services work will come from the individual projects which they perform work in support of. The Project C4-2 Request for Qualifications—Soils and Materials Testing Services Page 3 Manager in conjunction with the Finance Department monitors the availability of funds. If a project is not adequately funded at the time the work is needed, staff will return to the City Council to request a supplement to the budget prior to issuing any purchase order for the work. ALTERNATIVE Deny RFQ. The City Council could choose to deny the RFQ process resulting in staff returning to the previous practice of obtaining needed services for individual projects by hiring a consultant on a project by project basis in accordance with the purchasing policy guidelines. This alternative is not recommended by staff because of the additional time it takes to hire a single consultant for each needed service, and the fact that no benefits are obtained over the RFQ process proposed. . AVAILABLE FOR REVIEW IN THE COUNCIL OFFICE RFQ— Soils and Materials Testing Services T:\Council Agenda Reports\Public Works CAR\201 1\CIP\50410.7227.201 I MO.Testing RPQ\50410.7227.2011 Adv RFQ Mtl.Testing.Doc C4-3